From Dummett's Philosophical Perspective 9783110808568, 9783110149869

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Anat Matar From Dummett's Philosophical Perspective

Perspektiven der Analytischen Philosophie Perspectives in Analytical Philosophy Herausgegeben von Georg Meggle und Julian Nida-Rümelin

Band 15

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G Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1997

Anat Matar

From Dummett's Philosophical Perspective

w G_ DE

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1997

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

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Matar, Anat, 1 9 5 6 From Dummett's philosophical perspective / Anat Matar. p. cm. - (Perspektiven der analytischen Philosophie ; Bd. 15 = Perspectives in analytical philosophy) Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D.). Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 3-11-014986-9 1. Dummett, Michael A. E. I.Tide. II. Series: Perspectives in analytical philosophy : Bd. 15. B1626.D854M38 1997 192 - dc21 97-28723 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek -

CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

Matar, Anat: From Dummett's philosophical perspective / Anat Matar. - Berlin; New York : de Gruyter, 1997 (Perspectives in analytical philosophy ; Bd. 15) Zugl.: Tel-Aviv, Univ., Diss. ISBN 3-11-014986-9

© Copyright 1997 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany Printing: A. CoUignon GmbH, Berlin Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin Cover design: Rudolf Hübler, Berlin

To my parents

Preface This book is devoted to the philosophy of Michael A.E. Dummett, and its aim is to present his unique perspective as one of the most interesting and inviting philosophical proposals in present days. I first came across Dummett's writings while writing my Master's thesis at Tel-Aviv University. The encounter with Dummett's views had a shocking effect: they were not only extremely interesting, original and daring, but also, they somehow gave me the feeling that they expressed precisely what I believed in. The problem was, that I couldn't clearly and precisely define even to myself - neither what exactly it was that I believed in nor what these views actually were. I consequently began to read everything Dummett had written, in order to find the key to the missing insight. At that time, I had already framed my strong belief in the importance of non-canonical writings to the understanding of a man's perspective, and indeed, it was through reading Dummett's "marginal" essays on contemporary moral and political affairs that I eventually laid my hand upon that missing key. Dummett's temperament and his most basic - unfounded - beliefs were easy to detect there; and for me, very easy to identify with. Embarking from these "key traits", I began tracing the way through Dummett's complicated and subtle arguments, realizing, along the way, how easy it was to misinterpret them - both due to some of Dummett's own wording and to the fact that they fit into no known pigeonhole. Looking at this project now, from its end point, I hope that the resulting picture is not yet another misreading, merely reflecting my own way of looking at things rather than an interpretation of Dummett's perspective. There are, at any rate, several points - one of them very essential - on which I disagree with Dummett, On several other issues, hardly considered by him, I found it suitable to continue the Dummettian line of thought by myself. "Whoever tries to think philosophically, and to some extent succeeds, must find and does find, when he reflects upon it, that his thought takes shape as a system". These are the words of Collingwood,' whose influence on my

1

1933, p. 193.

Preface

vili

conception of philosophy will be evident in what follows. According to Collingwood, each philosopher should find his place within the universal, historic-philosophical system, by working within a system consisting of his own views. Collingwood regards the personal system, "an expression of the way in which its author looks at the world" (ibid, p. 182), as only a stage in the absolute philosophical system - a Hegelian belief shared by Dummett as well. I maintain, on the contrary, that each individual philosophical system forms an idiolect,

so to speak. Let me clarify this in a nutshell.

"Each philosopher, if he genuinely does make his own contribution to knowledge, cannot be merely adding another item to an inventory; he must be shaping afresh in his own mind the idea of philosophy as a whole." (Collingwood, ibid, p. 184) In doing this, the philosopher must also confer fresh meanings on the traditional philosophical terms. What results is a sort of "holistic theory". And as with every holistic theory, here too the meanings of the terms are related not only to other terms but to the body of beliefs:

it

is the answers given to various questions (epistemologica!, ethical, etc.) that determine the exact meanings of the terms this particular philosopher uses. An important consequence of this conception is what looks prima

facie

like a picture of impenetrable philosophical "bubbles" which do not lend themselves to comparison.

Philosophers who do not share a common

perspective seem unable to communicate, let alone persuade one another; each is allegedly locked in his own "bubble". In fact, this picture is only partly true. Philosophers can converse since they speak the same language and share a common jargon. 2 On this basis they can locate misunderstandings and explain themselves. But when we reach the question of persuasion, the situation is totally different. The fact that they share the same linguistic basis makes communication between them possible. But on what basis can they persuade each other? A philosopher who regards philosophy as "a sector in the quest for truth" cannot persuade the sceptic, as Dummett rightfully notes (LBM, P.240); but the sceptic finds himself in exactly the same position when he tries to convince his colleague to abandon what he regards as an unattainable, worthless project. And so it is with other basic tenets and leading presuppositions.

2

Pace Davidson, I do not believe that the "bubble" idea applies everywhere. I thus share Dummett's below.

criticism of Davidson's

conception of natural language. See Chapter Three

Preface

IX

One of the features most distinctive of holism is the inability to justify or criticize the whole itself. Indeed, every philosopher has some personal "key traits" which serve as the basis for his convictions and beliefs, especially those regarding his own metier. What is left to a philosopher working within his own holistic "bubble", then, is just to form his perspective in accordance with his most fundamental dispositions, and carry on to build a coherent set of ideas, theories and views. It is important to note here that these underlying choices are not always explicit; sometimes even the philosopher himself is not fully aware of them. This however should not deter us from describing them as basic, because a reconstruction of the system will show us that it is these "unfounded" beliefs which serve as the basis for all the other, well-founded, beliefs. Relating to these basic convictions enables us, furthermore, to focus on a philosopher's perspective, despite changes in opinion which may appear along the way. In Truth and Other Enigmas, published in 1978, Dummett included articles published almost twenty years earlier. Some of the articles in his recent Frege and Other Philosophers were written 15 years ago. The author's views have naturally changed over the years but his writings still have "a certain unity, derived from a fairly constant general outlook on philosophical problems" (TOE, p.x). That is to say: the "key traits" and the basic convictions remain the same, constituting the core of Dummett's perspective. This book springs from my Ph.D. dissertation. Many friends helped me along the way and I wish to thank them all wholeheartedly.

Shlomo

Biderman, Yoav Ariel and Anita Shapira helped me to obtain the grant needed for a year's leave in Oxford, where the thesis was written. My supervisor Asa Kasher supplied me with lots of detailed, careful and knowledgeable comments, thus protecting me from innumerable pitfalls. My friend Ruth Manor read the manuscript attentively and her invaluable meticulous observations paved a smooth and comfortable way to the final result. But my greatest debt is, naturally, to Michael Dummett. I am obliged to him, primarily, for having agreed to cooperate in this project: I know it is not easy to serve both as a guide and as the subject of a thesis. I am especially grateful for the many hours of the most profound, inspiring and enjoyable conversations that he afforded me. But most of all, I am indebted to Michael for looking at things from such a wonderful perspective.

Contents Preface 1 Introduction: Dummett's Key Traits 1.1 Optimism

vii 1 1

1.2 Adventurousness

3

1.3 A thin layer of rationality

5

1.4 Frege and Wittgenstein

7

1.5 And Kant

9

1.6 Objectivism, relativism and the intermediate position

11

1.7 Two connected motivations for this book

12

2 Metaphilosophy

15

2.1 Truth (1)

18

2.2 Truth (2)

25

2.3 Philosophy and other disciplines

32

3 Anti-Realism: The General Picture

39

3.1 Anti-realism as linguistic Kantianism

40

3.2 Analytical philosophy

43

3.3 Objections to linguistic Kantianism

48

4 Anti-realism: The Semantical Details

70

4.1 Organic and hierarchical theory of meaning

73

4.2 Language, idiolects and the role of conventions

79

4.3 A 'full-blooded' theory

89

4.4 Justificationism 4.5 Addendum: Davidson 5 Anti-Psychologism Revisited

94 105 108

5.1 The cognitive component

112

5.2 Rationality and responsibility

119

5.3 Cognitive Sciences

123

xii

Contents

6 Logic and Mathematics

135

6.1 Actual and Potential

135

6.2 Application and Innovation

145

7 Time

153

7.1 Wright's second picture 154 7.2 Wright's first picture

162

7.3 Conclusion

168

8 Normative Applications

172

8.1 Cognitivism and non-cognitivism

173

8.2 Objectivity and the rejection of bivalence

179

8.3 Systematization and criticism

184

8.4 Dummett's positions

186

9 Epilogue

191

10 Bibliography

205

11 Name Index

217

1 Introduction: Dummett's Key Traits Following what has been suggested in the preface, in order to understand Dummett's perspective as fully as possible, it is desirable to get to know his fundamental beliefs -the bedrock of his worldview. I find that Dummett's thought is based upon one principal belief, the belief in the uniqueness and meaningfulness of philosophy, and that this belief is itself initiated by two key traits, which are endowed with amoral nature: optimism and adventurousness. In this introductory chapter, I will lay down in outline the salient principles on which Dummett's perspective is based. The rest of the book comprises an attempt to elaborate and examine them thoroughly, to emphasize the way they hang together, forming a unity.

1.1 Optimism "Only with Frege was the proper object of philosophy finally established... I know that it is reasonable to greet all such claims with scepticism, since they have been made many times before in the history of philosophy... To this 1 can only offer the banal reply which any prophet has to make to any sceptic: time will tell." (TOE, p. 458) The closing words of Truth And

Other Enigmas

reveal

Dummett's

optimism, first trait which dominates his thought. Apart from being a general attitude, 3 his optimism amounts to a belief in some kind of objective truth and in our ability to reach it through rational methods. The first of these beliefs looks prima facie problematic for an anti-realist and will be studied in the next chapter; the second consists of the presumption that there is a common basis to every human being, a shared rationality. Before addressing this issue, let me first introduce the special place these beliefs occupy within Dummett's thought.

3

"The conviction that despair is the wrong reaction" is found not only in VP (p. 12), but practically everywhere else.

2

Optimism Reading Dummett's writings carefully, one cannot fail to observe a

frequent adherence to 'the truth' or to 'rationality'. But despite the casual use made of these terms, their content is almost never spelled out and adherence to them is nowhere justified. The main reason for this is that these terms serve as the most remote and abstract goals, placed there just for the sake of optimism. They ought to give us a framework, encouraging us in our research and endeavour, for it is presupposed that we could not see any point in an inquiry, were it not directed and measured by certain agreed-upon criteria; we could not think of ourselves as making progress without there being any goal towards which we were progressing. This sort of optimistic belief in rationality brings us immediately back to the Eighteenth Century: indeed, Dummett's philosophy has much in common with the spirit of the Enlightenment. His conception of 'reason', for example, is a conception of a corrective, which is by definition pure, not affected by authority, prejudice and psychological motives. Properly functioning, reason can assure that we make progress in every aspect of our lives, but this proper functioning of reason is normally corrupted by the governing forces in society, including the political and the religious institutions. Dummett, despite his deep religious beliefs, is very critical of both forces, due to the negligence of their moral role in leading the people towards more rational behaviour. Such an attitude is of course characteristic of the Enlightenment - the age of faith. Since Dummett's optimism is crucial in shaping his perspective, he may certainly be regarded as a man of faith. Taking Dummett's belief in rationality as a key trait, it is obvious why David Papineau misses the point when he asks Dummett to justify it. Papineau complains that while "Dummett does need an argument for the universality of methods of belief-formation", he "doesn't really address the issue at all" (Papineau 1987, p.116). But how could he? Even Papineau himself is aware of the fact that "for the anti-realist of method, 'rationality' is a primitive notion, not a derivative one" (ibid, p. 114). Papineau may ask for justification here only because he looks at things from a

different

perspective, adopting a different starting point. His own perspective is that of the naturalist, functionalist view (which Dummett could never accept), and from this viewpoint he interprets Dummett's belief in rationality as a belief "that we have a distinctive mode of access to our own mental states", and then goes on to conclude that this belief should be rejected because it is "part

Introduction: Dummett's Key Traits

3

of believing in 'givens'." (ibid, p.121) Dummett, however, is very far from thinking of rationality in terms of mental states and introspection; his optimistic stance places 'rationality' in the background of his philosophy, thus allowing himself to guard philosophy from all sorts of scientistic and psychologistic intruders (including naturalists and functionalists), which "would bring itself in question". 4 He is left, then, with no tools, and moreover, with no need, for a justification of this fundamental position itself. "There is no justification that can be offered to the sceptic", he says (LBM, p.240); there is no argument that can persuade Papineau to reject his own starting point in favour of Dummett's, and vice versa.

1.2 Adventurousness "Whatever else we are meant to do, we are not meant to be unadventurous." (CWO, p.30) The second key trait of Dummett's thought is his confirmed anti-conservatism. His ideas are not only innovative; some tend also to be revisionary. Philosophy has to interfere with the world: even our most comfortable habits are susceptible to criticism and revision, when they are shown to be inadequate by a philosophical reasoning. "The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question", wrote Marx, concluding that "the philosophers have only interpreted the world differently; the point is to change it".5 Dummett has undoubtedly absorbed this Marxian attitude. Regarding "adventurousness" as a key trait means turning to it as a last explanation - the highest court of appeal; and indeed, trying to understand Dummett's decisions in certain junctions, we sometimes find that the best explanation must rely on this Marxian principle, combined with contempt for the familiar fear of the new. This trait is responsible for many facets of Dummett's perspective; it is manifested in the obvious example of his endorsement of intuitionistic logic in particular, and anti-realism in general, but it is not less interesting as the

4 5

PI, # 133. 1975, p.422f. In a book comparing Marxism and Christianity, Maclntyre notes that both "rescue individual lives from the insignificance of finitude... by showing the individual that he has or can have s o m e role in a world-historical drama" (1968, p.86). Precisely this, is, I believe, D u m m e t t ' s tacit motivation.

4

Adventurousness

initiator of non-conservative positions concerning voting procedures, the Christian doctrine, or the political role of the Catholic Church, as in the following example: "... No idea is to be rejected out of hand as incapable of being squared with Christian doctrine, unless it expressly contradicts such doctrine..."; "Churchmen... tended to favour existing regimes, primarily, I think, for fear of what might happen next..."; "the Church has been., a passive spectator., because it has been unable until the last decade of the 19th century to assimilate or even to respond to the new ideas" (CWO, p.30). This second trait is conditioned by the first. In order to prevent his adventurous suggestions from being considered arbitrary, Dummett needs to turn to truth and to our rational ability. In order to criticize practice, a somewhat detached realm of 'theory' must be presupposed. On the other hand, there is some kind of conditioning in the opposite direction too; as Maclntyre rightly notes, "It is only those who are engaged in changing the world who can hope to see the world rightly" (1968, p.49). It is this second, somewhat Marxian, trait, which manifests that the prima facie similarities between Dummett's basic belief in rationality and the spirit of the Enlightenment are a little misleading. Had his philosophy been based only on his optimism, the differences between him and the philosophers of the 18th century would have been minor. They would have expressed the trivial fact that changes in the information and the surrounding conditions have bearings on the philosophies of the epoch. In fact, such an understanding of Dummett's worldview is commonly held by some of his critics, 6 who misinterpret his revolutionary key trait, reading it as foundationalist. As we have just noted, this trait does indeed force us to presuppose a level of shared criteria, against the background of which one could talk of a just and rational revision, but this same demand forces us also to regard that level as a very thin one; for how can we be adventurous if we are supposed to agree on many fixed principles, ignoring the role of history in changing and reconstructing them? The suggestion to revise our norms is reasonable only if we do not put too much into our agreed and shared level of rationality, i.e. if we bestow upon history a greater part than that attributed to it in the Enlightenment. Again, Dummett's proposal to revise our logic - to replace our good old classical logic with the not so popular intuitionistic one - is

6

E.g. Rorty and McDowell. 1 discuss their criticism in several places below.

Introduction: Dummett's Key Traits

5

paradigmatic. For while Dummett does regard the laws of logic as leading to the truth, he nonetheless declares that "the philosopher is not content merely to conform with established linguistic practice; he wants... to command a clear view of its operation. Without doubting that deductive inference is justifiable, he wants to know what its justification is" (LBM, p. 194). And according to the results of this philosophical investigation, he will urge us to quit some of our logical norms in favour of better ones.

1.3 A thin layer of

rationality

The rationality assumption is, then, necessary for Dummett's optimism and adventurousness. But what can we say about this 'rationality'? For one thing, it is exercised by our attempts to command a clear view of every issue which allows it, when this clear view is gained by systematic thinking, a "theory". Dummett is predominantly engaged in "the most ambitious of intellectual endeavours", which is "to gain a clear view of the working of our language" (LBM, p.321 ): his main effort is devoted to the theory of meaning, and most of his work in logic is subsidiary to this aim. Nonetheless, Dummett's desire to command a clear view does not stop with language, rather it characterizes and unifies his thought in general. This means that wherever possible, the explanations that he seeks ought not to be based on hidden forces and should not leave any mysterious steps unexplained. It is this requirement of clarity which

is the basis of his automatic disapproval of every

unnecessary

adherence to mysticism, transcendentalism, or intuition. 7 The best way to command a clear view of an issue is to think of it systematically, according to Dummett's conception of rationality': "To reject in principle a systematic manner of thinking about a subject which of its nature manifestly allows of a systematic approach is to repudiate rationality itself' (VP, p.298). If we regard Dummett's first trait, his optimism, as spelled out by a constant yearning to command a clear view in a systematic approach (i.e. to attain a "theory"), it is obvious how this first trait serves Dummett's second trait, adventurousness. For the clear view enables us to judge the prevailing norms, our common beliefs and the existing practice, thus showing their

7

His treatment o f the game of Tarot is paradigmatic. See esp. the introduction to GT.

A thin layer of rationality

6

defects, and calling us to replace them with better ones. "Adventure", then, is called for only where it is rational. A declaration of a subject as not being capable of rational treatment amounts to renouncing the possibility of criticizing the relevant prevailing norms. Such a declaration is, then, pessimistic and conservative in its nature.8 This blend of traditional adherence to truth and rationality with an adventurous spirit is what makes Dummett's thought so unique and interesting. The traditional background is needed in order to assure us that the adventurous suggestions are meaningful and not arbitrary, but when we succeed in commanding a clear view of the traditional and prevailing norms, even in logic, we are entitled (or better, required) to criticize and revise them. From what I have said up to now, it may seem that for Dummett, rationality is merely another name for clarity and systematization, and hence that his view of rationality is a formal one - one that has to do only with method or scheme, and is indifferent to content. This is not the case, however. "From one culture to another, much about human beings remains constant" (CWO, p.21). The "thin layer of rationality", mentioned earlier, represents this constancy. It is, so to speak, the "river bed" of our arguments and beliefs. It is the level that gives meaning and support to all the rest, as in the following quote from Wittgenstein's On Certainty. "That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn" (# 341). The nature of the stability and objectivity of this level will be discussed later on, especially in the next chapter. Philosophers seek to reveal and reshape this thin level: having attained a clear view of it - a systematic representation of the conceptual interconnections within this level - they criticize it. All this leads to Dummett's most basic belief: the belief in the autonomy and meaningfulness of philosophy. This brings us to another aspect of the key traits. Optimism and adventur-

8

"To reject in principle the application to this subject of a systematic approach... is to reveal oneself as not really caring what the truth about it is: and that means to forfeit the right to have opinions or make assertions about it altogether." (VP, p.299) According to the Marxian approach, combining interpretation with revision, it also means to forfeit the right to criticize and revise: "The critic is professedly a revisionist, aiming to change existing practice... he must claim... that existing practice is confused, and must be put in order again." (LBM, p.304)

Introduction: Dummett's Key Traits

7

ousness are not just personal preferences - their nature is moral: we are meant to be adventurous; we are not meant to comply with what we have already achieved and to fear the new and revisionary. This point is crucial, because it gives Dummett's views a unifying frame, a special nuance. In fact, Dummett's interest in philosophical enquiries is itself initiated by a similar drive; he tells us that what distinguishes the philosopher from the intellectually incurious is that the latter is "content with an assurance that what we are agreed on was true, even though we did not know what it meant, what made it true, or on what basis we believed it" (LBM, p.240); in other words, the intellectually incurious is one who is content with his present beliefs, without commanding a clear view of them and without feeling any need to change them. Reading these lines I could not but compare them to Plato's words, which I chose as the first motto of this book: "we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to inquire, than we should have been if we thought that there was no knowing and no duty to seek to know that we do not know." (Meno, p.285) These words could have been Dummett's words. Dummett's optimistic and adventurous positions have, then, a moral nature. Their specific content bears, in its turn, consequences to particular moral beliefs and preferences. Thus, for example, the background assumption of a common rationality entails our duty to treat all people "as equals and with respect" (Im, p.5); the critical and adventurous spirit, which dictates a thin content of what we take to be 'rational', also entails Dummett's respect for beliefs and forms of behaviour other than his own and a tendency of siding with the minority. I touch on some of these aspects of Dummett's perspective in the last chapter.

1.4 Frege and Wittgenstein A prevalent component of every philosophical interpretation is the search for the philosopher's sources of influence. In Dummett's case the two main sources are obvious, but it is still interesting to examine which parts of Frege's thought he adopts, why he rejects others, and how exactly he is influenced by Wittgenstein. The blend of Fregean and

Wittgensteinian

elements is problematic, as many authors noted. While these two great

Frege and Wittgenstein

8

philosophers do have much in common 9 , their philosophies may still be rightfully regarded as opposed. Consider, for example, Crispin Wright's criticism: "[T]he possibility seems to me still to be open that Dummett, at least when wearing his revisionary anti-realist hat, has essayed to occupy an incoherent middle position between those of his two great luminaries. This is... because the explanation of why these [anti-realist] ideas should be revisionary at all appears to need appeal to an objectivity of meaning to which the anti-realist's entitlement has still to be made out" (Wright 1986, p.341).'° According to Wright, then, Dummett draws his anti-realism from Wittgenstein's arguments, and the basis for his revisionist tendency from Frege's objectivism - but these opposed sources cannot be blended together to create a consistent view. In other words, Wright regards the revisionist position as deriving from an inconsistent set of premises concerning meaning. I suggest that we examine this issue from a different perspective, though. Wright is of course right in noting Frege's and Wittgenstein's influence upon Dummett's philosophy. But if we wish to get a full grasp of this philosophy, we should not confine our examination to Dummett's intuitionism, or even to his anti-realism. Rather, we should start by revealing the motivations leading to them: optimism and adventurousness. These traits do not contradict each other; on the contrary. A closer look at both of Dummett's luminaries shows us the salient differences between him and any one of them. Frege was a great optimist; his logicist programme is a direct consequence of his optimism - his belief in attaining a clear and systematic picture. However, taking clarity as going hand in hand with stability and sharpness of definition, Frege's requirements ignored the complexity and the vividness immanent to language. This was linked to his disregard of the social nature of language. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, recognized these faults and hence emphasized precisely the neglected elements, but derived from them the pessimistic result that because of the inexact and constantly developing character of language, a systematic treatment of it ("theory") is impossible. Moreover, for the same reason, there may be no corrective, and hence except for pointing at some puzzling facts about ourselves, philosophers cannot interfere with practice. To

9

More than is generally acknowledged, I think. See the Epilogue tor a brief discussion of the way Wittgenstein conforms with Frege's three dicta of his 1950.

10

See also Baker 1986, p. 163.

Introduction: Dummett's Key Traits

9

Dummett, Wittgenstein's reaction seems problematic: for although he adopts many components o f the latter's conception o f language, he wonders how and why we can leave everything as it is, if a clear view shows us that we are entangled

in our own rules. Mere speaking of a 'clear view'

already

presupposes some corrective!" The perspective from which I suggest to examine the Frege-WittgensteinDummett relationship is Hegelian. In dialectical terms, Wittgenstein's reaction to Frege may be depicted as an antithesis. It contains many Fregean elements, but mostly by way o f negating them. Dummett's philosophy should now be viewed as aiming at a synthesis o f both, or as a "determinate negation", for it unites the preceding philosophies, but in a way which preserves and abolishes them at the same time. They are, so to speak, Aufgehoben.

The

framework, or the foundation, as he says (TOE, p.452), is Fregean; but what he takes from Frege is no longer Fregean. The specific "content" is in many cases Wittgensteinian; but in a Dummettian context these "Wittgensteinian" elements are certainly not Wittgensteinian. Taken outside their homes, these ideas do not carry with them their original senses, and hence are not inconsistent

any more.

What we have, then,

is a historical,

dialectic

development, yielding a new perspective, rather than an "analytic" mixture o f genuinely inconsistent elements.

1.5 And Kant Out o f . t h e two opposed traditions of rationalism and empiricism, there emerged a wholly new philosophy, that o f Kant. I have just shown that Dummett, borrowing from Frege and the later Wittgenstein, succeeds in doing something similar. I also find that his philosophy has many Kantian elements; some o f them naturally appear in a modern linguistic disguise, but others resemble Kant's even in the way they are framed. When Dummett inquires how language is possible, or when he speaks o f justification o f deduction, it is not difficult to detect the Kantian rhetoric behind the analytical wording. "Our problem is not to persuade anyone, not even ourselves, to employ deductive arguments: it is to find a satisfactory explanation o f the role o f such

11

See Dummett's criticism o f Wittgenstein along these lines in SL, p. 182.

And Kant

10

arguments in our use of language... Admittedly, the situation is not as straightforward as that in which we have a proposition which we accept as true but want to know how it comes to be true: it is not plain in advance just what is meant by saying that deductive reasoning is justifiable. We seek, simultaneously,

an elucidation

of that proposition

and an

explanatory

argument showing what makes it true" (TOE, p.296). The affinity between Kant and Dummett stretches beyond the mere outlines of their philosophies, or their methodologies, to the details. The most fundamental resemblance is found in the emphasis on the centrality of man, hence of epistemology as basic to every philosophical solution. Kant's Copernican revolution shows how both the sense and the truth of every proposition are determined through a human-centred perspective. Dummett's anti-realism is literally a modern reformulation of the same procedure; and in both cases this attitude has repercussions

for every philosophical

field. Eventually,

it is naturally

connected to the normative discourse. Kant's idea of autonomy, his respect for people and his equal treatment of every rational creature, who has duties and responsibility, are all elementary components of Dummett's worldview. My allusion to Dummett's precursors aims to delineate for us a certain philosophical circle to which Dummett's thought belongs. I deliberately omitted other philosophers, whose philosophy has some affinities with that of Dummett's, but who belong to a different philosophical circle. Berkeley is the most notable example of such a philosopher: he is bothered by different questions and proposes different kinds of solutions to them.' 2 The same is true of Brouwer, Carnap and Quine: each has a great deal in common with Dummett, but belongs to a different philosophical circle. 13

12

Compare the way Dummett refers to Berkeley with the way he treats Kant in the essay

13

The logical positivists do not share with Dummett the predominant Kantian rejection of outside "givens"; Quine attempts at solving this problem by introducing holism, which amounts to pessimism and hence conservatism. Brouwer's case is the least obvious, since his intuitionism serves as a central tool for Dummett, and since it arose from Kantian considerations. However, as Dummett notes, "Brouwer's philosophy of mathematics is psychologistic through and through", regarding proofs "as mental constructions, often only imperfectly communicable by language" (CN, p.609). As we shall see in what follows, antipsychologism is one of Dummett's most basic tenets, hence counting Brouwer as his precursor is too inconvenient. On the other hand, we should mention here Dummett's acknowledgement of - and gratitude to - the revisionist nature of Brouwer's work: "It is from his work that we can appreciate that, in other areas too, the rejection of realism... may call for a revision in the accepted canons of deductive reasoning and in the theory of

"Realism" in IFP: p.462 and p.472.

Introduction: Dummett's Key Traits

11

1.6 Objectivism, relativism and the intermediate position The circle I have been delineating constitutes a part of what I see as "the intermediate position" in the current debate on the nature of philosophy. There has recently been a tendency to divide modern philosophers into two opposed groups. This dichotomy is sometimes presented as one between Analytical philosophy and Continental philosophy (as in Mitchell and Rosen 1983), as one between objectivist and relativist philosophy (Bernstein 1983), or as a dichotomy between traditional Philosophy (Kantian, that is) and edifying philosophy, or pragmatism (as in any work of Rorty). The two opposed streams are described in very sharp lines, and Dummett's position is taken to be, in each of these dichotomies, a paradigm case of the Analytic, objectivist and traditional stream. In the previous sections, I drew a picture which could be read as adopting a similar description, according to which Dummett is, indeed, one of the last warriors for truth and rationality, a devout Analytic philosopher and a traditional objectivist. I wish now to avoid such a reading, by suggesting a trichotomy, and by arguing that Dummett occupies the intermediate position in this trichotomy. Accordingly, one side is indeed occupied by those positions which claim that a certain kind of "external" reality determines the truth values of some (or even all) of our propositions, hence their objectivity. This is of course the definition of at least some realistic views. 14 On the opposite side stand the sceptics of all sorts, those who deny the possibility of any general, or conceptual, discussion of truth or rationality: the relativists, pragmatists, and their like. The intermediate position is occupied, then, by all those who find "hard" objectivism, or metaphysical realism, redolent of mysticism, but who still endorse some kind of moderate adherence to 'truth' and 'rationality'. Another way of formulating their common motivation is by stressing that they all still hold to the belief that philosophy is autonomous,

meaning underlying them, and can discern the possibility of a coherent alternative logic to accord with non-realist metaphysics" (ibid, p.613). 14

Some and not all, for there are those realists who, at least prima facie, reject any form of metaphysical realism. Most of them will eventually turn out to be part of the other extreme, i.e. scepticism, but some of them share the intermediate position along with Dummett. Perhaps Putnam may serve as an example here. See, e.g. the preface to his 1981.

Objectivism, relativism and the intermediate position

12

meaningful and possible. The traditional model for this group is the great inventor of middle positions: Kant. According to the aforementioned dichotomies, the intermediate position is not a genuine possibility; rather, it is a version of the old objectivism. Bernstein characterizes what is common to every "objectivist" position thus: "the basic conviction that there is or must be some permanent, ahistorical matrix or framework to which we can ultimately appeal in determining the nature of rationality, knowledge, truth, reality, goodness, or rightness. An objectivist claims that there is (or must be) such a matrix and that the primary task of the philosopher is to discover what it is and to support his or her claims to have discovered such a matrix with the strongest possible reasons. Objectivism is closely related to foundational ism..." (Bernstein 1983, p.8). The problem with dichotomies (and, alas, trichotomies as well) is that despite their clarity, they blur important differences. Thus while Dummett is indeed a sort of foundational ist, who believes that we should strive to "discover" some kind of "truth", he cannot be described as holding the conviction that there is such a matrix, that what we aim at is purely ahistorical, and that it determines

the nature of the above concepts. 15

1.7 Two connected motivations for this book This brings us to the final section of this introduction. I have two closely connected reasons for writing about Dummett. The first is my impression that there is a widespread misunderstanding of Dummett's position, caused by two things: a partial reading of Dummett, and an adoption of a dichotomy like those mentioned in the previous section. Let us take, for example, Sol lace Mitchell, who quotes Dummett without bothering to locate that quote within Dummett's general worldview: "If philosophy is, as Dummett believes, 'one perhaps the most important - sector in the quest for truth', it is liable to make progress only because (or if) it treats of facts. That is to say, philosophizing ought to issue in a set of true propositions: declarative sentences that have

15

The same is true for each of the philosophers who occupy the middle position. Although their solutions are different, none fits the above description with no reservations, but none belongs to the other, relativist, category. 1 am thinking here of Popper, Ronald Dworkin and Habermas, to mention but three outstanding examples.

Introduction: Dummett's Key Traits

13

been conclusively verified" (Rosen & Mitchell 1983, p.58). I shall argue in what follows that although such an interpretation has some grain of truth to it, it nonetheless misses the point by ignoring Dummett's

anti-realistic

conception of 'facts' and 'true propositions'. Realizing this amounts to admitting the existence of the intermediate position, and Dummett's unique views within that position. This is indeed the second motivation for writing this book: at the end of the 20th century it seems that one cannot adopt with no hesitation the empiricist picture and sincerely believe that something fixed "out there" determines our meanings and our values. On the other hand, the recently popular abandoning of any reference to truth and rationality seems exaggerated, and moreover - dangerous. It is dangerous because it represents the opposite of optimism and adventurousness: it is utterly pessimistic and conservative. It leads to the worst attitude towards problems: ignoring them, and thus complying with them. This side of the trichotomy is best presented by Rorty, who indeed misrepresents Dummett's views, but his own arguments are in themselves interesting and challenging. 16 Rorty, who does not believe in the possibility of persuasion in a conclusive and rational manner, tries to draw a postphilosophical picture which presents the traditional philosophical discourse as anachronistic and irrelevant. He declares that he has become "pessimistic about the utility of Philosophy" and as a result he feels that "Dummett's reconstruction of the traditional issues explicates the obscure with the equally obscure" (Rorty 1982, p.xxviii). Rorty attacks Dummett's views on two levels: interpreting Davidson as a full-blooded Rortian, he uses his arguments to attack specific points in Dummett's positions within the philosophy of language; and presenting the faults of traditional philosophy, he attacks Dummett's general perspective - both directly and indirectly - on the metaphilosophical level. Rorty subordinates, rightly, I think, the first level to the second: "For Dummett no philosophy of language is adequate which does not permit the perspicuous reformulation of the epistemological and metaphysical issues discussed by the philosophical tradition... [therefore] in the end, the issue is going to be decided on a high metaphilosophical plane - one from

16

As opposed to his admission to being pessimistic, he protests against any accusation of conservatism. I discuss this issue in the next chapter, hence it is sufficient here to mention Rorty's stubborn attachment to "the Western tradition" as a version of conservatism.

14

Two connected motivations for this book

which we look down upon the philosophical tradition and judge its worth" (Rorty 1986, p.351). My intention is to show its worth through examining Dummett's perspective. In the next chapter I shall, then, examine Dummett's metaphilosophy; I shall first present it and track its optimistic and adventurous roots, and then compare

it with other metaphilosophical

particularly with that of Rorty.

suggestions,

2 Metaphilosophy "Mathematicians certainly understand mathematical statements sufficiently to operate with them... but, asked to explain the significance of their enterprise as a whole, to say whether mathematics is a sector in the quest for truth, and, if so, what the truths they establish are about, they usually flounder" (LBM, p. 13). The situation is different in philosophy: almost every philosopher is ready to give his own answers to the question of what kind of truth, if any, philosophy is seeking; but the results vary from one philosopher to another. I mentioned in the preface the importance of understanding the metaphilosophy of a philosopher whose perspective we aim to understand. Decisions regarding the character of philosophy, its aim and the desired methodology are crucial in defining that perspective. They determine the subject matter of the inquiry, what terms are considered legitimate and which have to be excluded from the philosophical vocabulary, and other details that bear consequence

upon further decisions.

In this chapter,

I shall

examine

Dummett's metaphilosophy, 17 and try to find out what he thinks of the possibility of progress in philosophy and of the similarity between it and other disciplines, like science, history and art. Prima facie,

Dummett does not

elaborate on these issues. Apart from a direct metaphilosophical discussion in TOE ("Can Analytic Philosophy be Systematic, and Ought it to Be?") and in the introduction to LBM, we find only sporadic remarks concerning them. A closer look, though, reveals that most of Dummett's work is indeed metaphilosophical:

the primacy of theory of meaning over any other

philosophical endeavour 18 is simply the analytical way of assigning primacy

17

In PG, # 72 Wittgenstein

seems to be claiming that there is no such thing as meta-

philosophy. However, he takes the term to mean a "calculus of all calculi", while I use the term here as referring to preliminary decisions on the goal, possibilities and method of philosophy, philosophical

in this sense, my claim that these should be clarified ahead of every other enquiry

coincides

with Wittgenstein's

remark about the impossibility

of

metaphilosophy: " W e might so present all that we have to say that this would appear as a leading principle." (ibid) 18

"Unless our general account of language

is on the right lines, the analysis which,

in

particular branches o f philosophy, we give of special types of sentence or special forms o f expression is liable to be defective, which is why the philosophy of language lies at the base of the entire structure..." (TOE, p.442)

16

Metaphilosophy

to metaphilosophical investigation; and Dummett certainly devotes most of his writing to such preparatory investigations of his tools. The next three chapters are devoted to an extensive discussion of the core of Dummett's thought, and thus may be read as dealing directly with his way of doing metaphilosophy; the present chapter is dedicated, rather, to the more direct question about the aim, possibility and method of philosophy. I shall start my discussion by examining what Dummett says explicitly about this question, and continue in a more interpretative manner. It is well-known that Dummett holds the traditional view that philosophy is a sector in the quest for truth. I remarked earlier that this fact, along with his endorsement of a systematic attitude towards philosophical problems, misled some interpreters

into considering him a traditional

objectivist,

disregarding his adventurous novelties. Nonetheless, it is true that Dummett's metaphilosophical starting point is traditional: the adherence to truth is accompanied by the adoption of traditional problems, which delineate the philosophical sphere: "Do we have free will? Can the soul, or the mind, exist apart from the body? How can we tell what is right and what is wrong? Is there any right and wrong, or do we just make it up? Could we know the future or affect the past? Is there a God?" (LBM, p.l). Dummett notes (in TOE, p.457) that there has always been wide agreement as to the range of philosophical problems; divergence is found rather in characterizing these problems and in methods of solving them. By and large, agreement also stretches to the conception of philosophical problems as calling for an analysis of our thought; we should "command a clear view of the concepts by means of which we think about the world, and, by so doing, to attain a firmer grasp of the way we represent the world in our thought" (LBM, p. 1 ). What is unique to the analytical school is their way of approaching thought: this is done by commanding a clear view of our language. 19 "Analytical philoso-

19

In the first pages of LBM Dummett sounds a bit ambiguous about the uniqueness of the analytic school. While elsewhere it is clear that the choice of analyzing thought via language is this school's special mark, there it is suggested that the difference lies only in the availability of the new, sophisticated, tools, initiated by Frege, and not in an altogether different perspective: "Where modern analytical philosophy differs is that it is founded upon a far more penetrating analysis of the general structure of our thoughts than was ever available in past ages". Dummett cites Aristotle's Categories and Hegel's Logic as examples of such early "analytic" endeavour. I think that these philosophers (and others, like Leibniz) should be conceived of as precursors to the Analytic school, rather than as its members.

Metaphilosophy

17

phy" is conceived of as a family name for a number of different programmes. 20 Although they all agree on the subject matter of philosophy and on some general desired methods, they differ on many other issues. The major dispute concerns the question of whether we can attach the predicate 'true' to a philosophical proposition. A belief that philosophy is, in one way or another, a sector in the quest for truth implies that it is in principle productive, that its problems ought to have real, meaningful, solutions and that we cannot be content with "therapy" alone. The choice between such a conception of philosophy and a more "destructive" one is clearly illustrated as a choice between the conceptions of Dummett's two sources of influence: Frege and Wittgenstein. Frege's general attitude was traditional. "The word 'true' indicates the aim of logic as does 'beautiful' that of aesthetics or 'good' that of ethics" (1956, p.289). For Wittgenstein, the complete clarity which philosophy attempts to achieve is gained by exposing the futility of philosophical problems. Thus, philosophy is destructive in its nature: "Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important?... What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stand." (PI, #118) Dummett, who is otherwise very influenced by Wittgenstein, cannot accept such an attitude towards philosophy, since it contradicts his optimism and his adventurous tendency. There is a close link between regarding philosophy as aiming at truth and endorsing a systematic philosophical work. Dummett indeed criticizes Wittgenstein directly for his antisystematic attitude (e.g. in TOE, p.453), and demands a systematic philosophical work. 21 This demand is doubled, indeed, since there are two indepen-

Moreover, Dummett even takes the late Gareth Evans, who has "rejected the assumption of the priority of language over thought" and has "attempted to explain thought independently of its expression" (p.3) to be an analytic philosopher. In what follows I shall ignore these uses of the term "analytic philosophy" and take it to mean not only the acknowledgement of the philosophy of thought as the starting point of philosophy, but also the approach to it via language (as in TOE, p.458). 20

21

In view of my position concerning the importance of metaphilosophical decisions, 1 cannot accept any characterization of "analytical philosophy" as lacking a specific content and as marked only by its emphasis on the clarity of exposition. See the next chapter for an elaboration of this claim. Much later, in 1989, he claims that Wittgenstein's "hostility to systematic theories" is in tension with his rejection of the representational model of meaning. See SL, p. 182.

18

Metaphilosophy

dent senses of 'systematic', and Dummett refers to both of them in his demand (ibid, p.455). First, he urges working within a unified theory, a "system", as did most of the great traditional philosophers; and secondly, he calls for adopting systematic standards, criteria and methods of inquiry. The first requirement is justified by the interconnections that inevitably exist between the various problems of philosophy and by the optimistic assumption. An analytic philosopher frames this requirement by insisting that the unified philosophical system is to be founded upon a theory of meaning, which - by clarifying how language functions and what we may expect from linguistic elucidations - will show how our philosophical analysis should look. These justifications for the demand for systematization, convincing as they are, are not enough. They merely show us why a systematic approach to philosophy is desirable; they do not, however, prove that it is possible.

Even in the

philosophy of language, which is supposed to be the clearest and the most fundamental, the possibility of systematization is not guaranteed. Dummett is aware of this. He indeed points to the way we acquire our language, which shows it to be built according to some principles which we grasp, but eventually admits that there is an element of faith here, and, as always, recommends us to choose the optimistic way. "Even if it should prove in the end not to be possible, we certainly have no adequate insight at present into what makes it impossible, and shall therefore learn much that is of the greatest value if we continue for the time being in our endeavour to construct such a theory" (TOE, p.454). Dummett's second requirement for systematization is that the philosophical work be carried on according to agreed standards, criteria and methods of inquiry. This sense of "systematic" is closely linked to the subject of the following section, and I shall discuss it there. Indeed, it is time to move on and discuss the more implicit, and prima facie

problematic, aspects of

Dummett's metaphilosophy. 2.1 Truth (1) How can a confirmed anti-realist like Dummett claim that he is engaged in a persistent search for truth, while anti-realism amounts mainly to the rejection of the centrality of the notion of truth in our philosophical accounts? There are two possible answers to this question: the first is that Dummett is

Metaphilosophy

19

not a global anti-realist, and that he holds realist views concerning the character of philosophical disputes. The second is that Dummett's "quest for truth" has nothing to do with realism of any kind. Although the first answer is reasonable, and may find favourable evidence in Dummett's writings, I tend to think that the second answer is the right one. Before arguing for it directly, I shall devote a brief discussion to the first answer. This answer is assisted by such paragraphs as the following: "[T]he arguments of the anti-realist often turn on particular features of the subject matter, and there is then no presumption that opting for an anti-realist view in one instance will demand the adoption of such a view in others" (LBM, p. 16). Connecting such paragraphs with Dummett's adherence to truth makes it possible to interpret his conception of philosophy as realist, and to claim that although Dummett does seek "a general argument against realism in any controversial case, that is, as applicable to any but the most restricted sectors of our language" (ibid), he regards philosophy itself as such a restricted sector of language, hence as deserving a realist description. It may even be argued that Dummett's general position is not necessarily anti-realist at all, and that all he wants to achieve is the characterization of the problem from a neutral, but analytic, standpoint. Such an interpretation is, alas, offered by Dummett himself in the concluding words of his Valedictory Lecture: "My principal aim has been to convince my philosophical colleagues that such a programme is called for. That aim is frustrated when it is mistaken as the advocacy of a large and sharply defined philosophy" (SL, p.478). However, 1 dare suggest that we are unconvinced, and shall ask for the underlying conception of philosophy which yields this programme, before working out its details. The interpretation just suggested, regarding Dummett's approach

to

philosophy as realist, deserves more attention. In fact, there should not be an easier task than finding out whether Dummett is indeed a realist about philosophical propositions or not. Dummett's own proposal makes it possible, and there is no reason to reject it here; on the contrary, it is most appropriate, particularly because it concerns Dummett's philosophy itself. Being a realist about a class of statements, according to Dummett, consists in believing that "each statement in the class is determined as true or not true, independently of our knowledge, by some objective reality whose existence and constitution is, again, independent of our knowledge" (IFP, p.434). When asked what makes a statement in this class true when it is true, the realist has to choose

20

Truth (1)

between t w o alternative answers: the first is saying that only a trivial answer can be given to this question; the second is adopting a reductive thesis, i.e. explaining the statements in question by turning to another class of statements, which is treated in its turn in a realist manner. Dummett calls the first of these alternatives "naive realism" and the second "sophisticated realism". N o w , following this analysis, we can proceed to examine Dummett's own views about the philosophical statements, and check whether he treats them realistically. Does Dummett believe that philosophical statements get their truth values independently of our knowledge? Is it possible to interpret him as adhering sincerely to an objective and independent reality? Some expressions of his are indeed redolent of realism

and objectivism; there is, for example,

the

description of past philosophers as bringing us "somewhat nearer to finding the answers" (LBM, p. 19), or that famous paragraph on Frege, who "finally established" the proper object of philosophy. It seems that there is a final and definitive goal at which we are aiming, and which it is possible for us to achieve. Truth is of course connected with objectivity: "[I]t is of the essence of the concept of truth that truth should be an objective feature of the proposition to which it attaches" (TOE, p.456); hence regarding philosophy as a quest for truth may be read as assuming that the truth values of the philosophical

propositions

are determined

according

to some

objective

features. Where, then, does this objectivity come from? Here we can apply the above analysis, and ask whether Dummett suggests any answer to that question; what, according to him, makes true philosophical propositions true? Inability to answer this question will present Dummett automatically as a naive realist; an informative answer, on the other hand, should raise further questions. The task is easy, for Dummett does mention something which makes philosophical propositions true: their being generally accepted. 'General agreement' replaces 'truth' occasionally in Dummett's metaphilosophical discussions. Here are a few examples. "Philosophy would interest m e much less if I did not think it possible for us eventually to attain generally agreed answers to the great metaphysical questions" (LBM, p. 19); "If philosophy is regarded... as one., sector in the quest for truth, it is then amazing that, in all its long history, it should not yet have established a generally accepted methodology, generally accepted criteria of success and, therefore, a body of definitively achieved results" (TOE, p.455). These claims

Metaphilosophy

21

are not trivial; they explain the basis on which we may attach the predicate 'true' to some philosophical results (e.g. Frege's generally accepted quantifier-variable notation for the logic of generality) and why we refrain from doing so to others. Hence Dummett is obviously not a naive realist concerning the philosophical statements. What remains for us to make clear now is whether he is a sophisticated realist concerning them. This question amounts to asking whether there is a way of reducing these statements into another class of statements, which reflects general acceptance and is realistically interpreted. A negative answer seems to be obvious. The fault with an affirmative answer is not due to the allegations of realism; rather, it is the idea of translating philosophical statements into non-philosophical ones which contradicts Dummett's most basic belief, the belief in the autonomy of philosophy. 'General agreement' is not to be seen as a description of factual states of affairs; philosophy does not aim to achieve a disinterested scientific description of our practices, linguistic and others. It is analytic precisely because it is not meant to represent, but rather to analyze, i.e. to provide criteria and thus be critical, although faithful to our practices as far as possible. Admittedly, Dummett never tells us what characterizes those propositions which are generally accepted, and why there may be no attempts to challenge them, but even if we made these features explicit, we could not ascribe them to a "reductive class" in the ordinary sense.22 In the previous chapter we acknowledged Dummett's optimism as consisting in the basic belief in a common rationality, in "our nature to be reflective". My aim in this section was to show that such a belief, while explaining Dummett's adherence to 'truth', does not have to draw from realist sources in any way: true propositions, understood as generally accepted ones, do not present us with any kind of "correspondence" to a given objective reality, whose existence and constitution is independent of our knowledge, and which philosophy aims at "representing".

22

The issue will be discussed However, a short quote from matter: "Our problem is not a and it is always legitimate to somewhere" (# 1).

again in the third chapter, regarding "full-bloodedness". PI may hint at the reason for Dummett's silence about the causal but a conceptual one" (p.203). Causes do not give out, ask for some; but conceptual explanations "come to an end

22

Truth (1) What may confuse in Dummett's expressions is his use of the term

'objectivity'. Consider, for example, the following uses of this term in LBM: "a broader category of 'objectivist' theories., [assumes] that every statement has a determinate one of the finitely many truth-values, independently of our knowledge... The versions of anti-realism., are all, however, characterized by a rejection of bivalence, and even of objectivism in the foregoing sense" (p.326); "For a moral realist, an ethical statement is as objectively true or false as one about the height of a mountain" (p.6). Objectivism here is clearly connected to some version of realism, whereas we have seen that truth entails objectivity; it follows that an anti-realist cannot possibly adhere to truth. However, we may consider another sense of 'objectivity', which can be acceptable to an anti-realist. This sense of 'objectivity' is similar to the one suggested by Bernstein, above. 23 Dummett is no less objective than Kant, when by 'objective' we mean something like intersubjective, i.e. based on our shared rational capacities. These two senses of 'objectivity' parallel the two readings of the distinction between 'how things are in themselves' and 'how they appear to us'. Dummett discusses the distinction in "Common Sense and Physics", suggesting the following double reading: a distinction "between what is true of the world and what only appears to be, but is not actually, true of it; and that between what may be called an absolute and what may be called a relative form of description" (SL,p.389). The latter24 does not assume a realist background, but simply differentiates two sorts of description - both, of course, "dependent upon us" - one which concentrates upon the shared aspects of our rationality, and one which does not. 25 Thus the term is stripped of its metaphysical and mystical features. Dummett's adherence to truth and objectivity is indeed very similar to that of Kant. In both cases, adherence to what is rational, or generally acceptable, does not take a platonic form; on the other hand, it is not based on a biological, or historical,

23

See the section on objectivism, relativism and the intermediate position in the preceding chapter. I would rather drop some of Bernstein's characteristics, but the kernel of his definition is reasonable and useful.

24

'Absolute' equals 'objective' in the present context.

25

Compare SL, p.404.

like "ahistorical matrix",

Metaphilosophy

23

reasoning. 26 As an optimistic philosopher, Dummett simply starts out from that point: it is the only one that may enable him to value a clear view and a systematic description, to be adventurous and to demand revisions on the basis of rationality. In this way Dummett's position is clearly intermediate: it is not relativistic, nor sceptical, since it leans heavily on the universal, or inter-subjective, but it is not realistic either, since this inter-subjective agreement is not founded upon an outside independent realm. "We do not make the objects but must accept them as we find them (this corresponds to the proof imposing itself on us); but they were not already there for our statements to be true or false of before we carried out the investigations which brought them into being" (TOE, p. 185). Dummett writes these words in the context of a discussion on the philosophy of mathematics, and indeed there is no better example for us than his attitude towards this subject: although mathematics is also conceived of as a sector in the quest for truth, Dummett's attitude towards it is certainly anti-realist, and not representationalist in any way. It is rationality

which imposes itself on us, and on

which basis we can revise our norms, even (and perhaps primarily) norms concerning our argumentative procedures. This conception, of identifying truth with the outcome of rational inquiry, explains Dummett's insistence on the second sense of 'systematic', mentioned in the previous section, namely the adoption of systematic standards, criteria and methods of inquiry. 27 This echoes our introductory characterization of Dummett's optimism, i.e. his belief in our ability to attain truth in a rational method - by commanding a clear view in a systematic manner. We can put the matter otherwise as follows: since the term 'realism' is assigned by Dummett to any representationalist conception, according to which there is something "outside" and "independent" which

language

represents, then his own view, traditional and objectivist as it is, is far from being realist, since the rational criteria his system is to expose are not outside us - but are the ones according to which language itself functions. The

26

27

"All sciences have truth as their goal; but logic is also concerned with it in a quite different way from this... To discover truths is the task of all sciences; it falls to logic to discern the laws of truth." (Frege, 1956, p.289.) This view of the matter is not characteristic merely of platonic thinkfers like Frege, but is common also to Kant and Hegel. And see, indeed, the connection made by Dummett in "Common Sense and Physics" - SL, pp.376-410, passim, but esp. in sections 4 and 5.

24

Truth (1)

traditional aspect of this view consists of the assumption that a universal set of such criteria is an aim we may adopt as a directive. I shall end this section with two remarks, on two complementary situations: in the first, generally accepted criteria for truth appear to be lacking, and one naturally doubts whether it is possible to talk then of truth and objectivity; in the second situation, there seems to be common agreement, but we may still want to avoid regarding the issue as settled, and the existing answers as true. In TOE p.456 Dummett writes: "[T]he step from saying that there exists no agreed standard by which the correctness of a proposition may be judged to saying that there is no notion of objective truth which may be applied to that proposition is... far from being a certain one;, it remains an as yet unresolved question within the theory of meaning... what is the exact relation between the notion of truth and our capacity for recognizing a proposition as true." In other words, the relation between truth and general acceptance is an important part of the theory of meaning itself - this is what makes it so fundamental - and should not be determined prior to constructing one; if the theory of meaning turns out to be realist, i.e. representational ist, this relation will surely be different than if it turns out to be anti-realist; only in the latter case will we be able to identify truth with general acceptance in Dummett's sense. The policy of "bottom upwards" demands that such a decision wait until the completion of the theory of meaning. This attitude is typical of Dummett's general optimist perspective. Dummett does not want to begin with unnecessary assumptions, which may be proved rather at a later stage. As I have already said, I cannot accept Dummett's optimism here. The picture of impenetrable philosophical bubbles, which I depicted in outline in the preface, suggests that Dummett should not wait here for a later stage, but simply define truth in terms of a potential general accord. This would make his use of the term less vague and questionable, and as a consequence we would get a clearer view of his philosophy as a whole. The addition of 'potential' connects us with the second situation I wish to address. The anti-realist, as is well known, believes that certain "forms of reasoning, though generally accepted, are fallacious" (TOE, p.318). According to him, a mere description of our practice is not enough, for it may be discovered that it is incoherent and should be revised. Thus it may look, prima facie, as if Dummett is incoherent: on the one hand he defines truth in terms of general acceptance, and on the other he is willing to criticize what

Metaphilosophy

25

is generally accepted in the name of truth. 28 But a more accurate and cautious rephrasing of the anti-realist position shows that although the only anti-realistic way to define truth is by adhering to our intersubjective rational methods and criteria, this in no way assures us that every generally accepted proposition is beyond criticism; it is the other way round: whenever a generally accepted proposition begins to be doubted and challenged, it automatically ceases to be regarded as true; the challenge is possible owing to the remaining generally accepted forms of reasoning. This is exactly the idea of the "thin layer" of shared rationality, discussed in the previous chapter and in the next section. Thus the anti-realist is able to criticize our own rational methods and criteria, without transcending our human capacities. It is an inside and not an outside criticism, since rather than checking whether these criteria fit any known fact, or scientific description, it examines some of them in light of others, seeking an overall coherence.

2.2 Truth (2) This brings us to another dispute concerning the truth of philosophical propositions. I mentioned earlier the choice between the traditional attitude to philosophy as a sector in the quest for truth, and the sceptical attitude which regards its aim as solely therapeutic. In fact, the dispute over the quest for truth continues among traditional philosophers, who agree upon the constructive nature of philosophical debates and upon the genuine character of philosophical problems. The questions that have to be settled are, first, whether truth in philosophy is eternal and unchanging, and secondly, whether we are able to attain it at all. There are three alternatives here: an affirmative answer to both questions; an affirmative answer to the first but not to the second; and a negative answer to the first question but an affirmative to the second. (The fourth combination, of two negative answers, transfers us to the sceptical side of philosophy, which we left out of the present discussion.) It is reasonable to connect both the first and the second answers with a realistic approach to the philosophical propositions, and the third with an anti-

28

This is the kernel o f Wright's complaint against Dummett's revisionism, mentioned in the previous chapter.

Truth (2)

26

realist one. If truth is determined by an external, independent, realm, it is more easily conceived of as eternal and unchanging. An anti-realist identification of truth with general acceptance does not seem to enable such a conception of truth, for what is generally accepted is constantly liable to criticism and challenge. The difference between the two allegedly realist answers is that while the first is optimistic, the other confines the achievements of philosophers at most to a continuous progress towards the truth, and hence it is more sceptical. If this is the case, then Dummett's answers to our questions ought to be of the third kind: that truth in philosophy, as a general agreement, changes over the years; Nevertheless, some of Dummett's declarations (especially on TOE. pp.456ff.) testify that this is not the case. Thus we are facing a problem in our interpretation of Dummett. It seems that either we are loyal to his antirealism and not to his belief in our ability to achieve unchanging solutions, or, if we accept his belief in the stable position of philosophical discoveries, we are forced to present him as a realist concerning them. What is the way out of this dilemma? As with most dilemmas, the way out consists of showing its somewhat misleading assumptions. But before doing this, I wish to discuss two alternative proposals. An example of the second, sceptical, and allegedly realist kind of answer is manifested in the writings of John Kekes. 29 Kekes' main argument is based on the assumption that problem solving does not necessarily lead to the disappearance of the problems solved. While some problems are indeed removable, others are enduring. Solutions to the latter kind of problems are judged on two levels: the first is the context of introduction, in which one examines whether a proposed theory has the potential of solving the problem; the second level is the context of acceptance, in which we ask whether the solution is truth-directed. The test of truth-directedness is composed of three sub-tests: whether the theory is consistent, its interpretation of its subjectmatter adequate and it is capable of withstanding criticism. "The surviving theory becomes the solution of the problem. A criticizable theory that survives serious criticism, wins out against its competitors, and passes the other tests, is one that it is justifiable to accept" (Kekes 1980, p. 118). Thus we know our solution is truth-directed; but are we also entitled to believe it is true? Here

29

1980 and 1983.

Metaphilosophy

27

we confront a trace of a genuinely sceptical-realist position, for Kekes's conception of truth is of something ideal, timeless and unattainable in principle, since

it transcends

human

grasp.

Hence "finding a theory

acceptable does not mean that it is true. For an acceptable theory has merely survived the criticisms of which one could think. It has been proved victorious only over presently available rivals. A true theory would have to survive all possible criticisms and be preferable to all possible rivals. It is logically impossible to show what all possible criticisms and rivals are, and even if a putative list were available, it would be impossible to determine whether it was complete. It is thus a consequence of this requirement that theories cannot be known to be true" (ibid, p. 121). An archetypal anti-realist position, of the third kind above, is endorsed by Collingwood. As a Hegelian, Collingwood looks at truth, any truth, in a historical perspective. In philosophy, this perspective is manifested by regarding its internal construction as a "scale of forms": each philosopher summarizes the philosophical experience up to his point, and shapes this summary and his own contribution to philosophy as a system of interconnected

ideas.

Every

achievement

in philosophy

is therefore

only

temporary, but the overall gives us an objective and ever-progressing result. On first reflection, this position seems to yield pure relativism. Consider, for example, Bernstein's definition of relativism, as claiming that "there can be no higher appeal than to a given conceptual scheme, language game, set of social practices, or historical epoch. There is a nonreducible plurality of such schemes... there is no overarching framework in which radically different and alternative schemes are commensurable - no universal standards that somehow stand outside of and above these competing alternatives." (Bernstein 1983, p . l l ) But, despite the resemblance, Collingwood is not a relativist, for although he emphasizes the historical perspective immanent to any solution, he does conceive of it as, at the same time, expressing the universal and objective, thanks to the rational method by which it is reached. Collingwood is not a sceptic either. He regards philosophy as a branch of knowledge and philosophical work as constructive and accumulative (Collingwood 1933, pp.176 & 181); but the form this construction takes is an endless reshaping of the whole body of knowledge from the foundations at every step. Thought, "traversing its scale of forms, gradually approximates to the ideal of a perfectly philosophical subject-matter treated by a perfectly philosophical

28

Truth (2)

method" (ibid, p.192). The ideal of perfection strikes a familiar chord; but this time perfection serves only as a metaphor - it does not aim at representing anything outside thought, or transcending human capacity in any way. Let us now return to Dummett, and examine his views on the matter. In order to do this, we have to know his answers to both of the questions presented above. The first question was whether truth in philosophy is eternal and unchanging; the second was whether we are able, in principle, to attain it. On the face of it, it seems that Dummett's answer to both these questions is in the affirmative. In his discussion of the present state of analytic philosophy, Dummett expresses his belief that it is now more possible than ever "to bring the search [for a theory of meaning] within affinité time to a successful conclusion" (TOE, p.454), and as an immediate reaction to our raised eyebrows, he continues: "the history of the subject indeed makes it very tempting to adopt the frequently expressed view that there are never final conclusions in philosophy; but, few as they may be, there exist counterexamples to this thesis, examples, that is, of solutions to what were once baffling problems that have now been accepted as part of the established stock of knowledge". Later on we find the reason for this belief: "what is the use of conducting any inquiry if it cannot be told when the results of that inquiry have been achieved?", he asks (ibid, p. 456). 30 Assuming that there is no point in hung results, Dummett believes that final results are possible to achieve. Does this attitude towards philosophy disclose a realist thread in Dummett's thought, eventually? A close perusal of his writings suggests otherwise, for most of the claims Dummett makes can be successfully interpreted as antirealist. Reading again the above quotations we should notice that 'truth' is not mentioned even once; all Dummett says there concerns final conclusions and results. I do not take the absence of the term 'truth' to be accidental. Keeping philosophy autonomous means regarding its nature as, au fond, grammatical; it has to do with elucidations of meanings, and hence it is not a factual discourse, while 'truth'

is usually meant to apply solely to empirical

discourse. When Dummett writes that philosophy, like mathematics - the two disciplines which "appear to proceed solely by means of ratiocination" should amass "a great body of established results" (ibid), the choice of

30

The same feeling is expressed in LBM, p. 19.

29

Metaphilosophy

'results' instead of 'truths' is deliberate, intending to emphasize the purely conceptual character of these results. In other places, where the term 'truth' is used, this use is manifestly a secondary one. 3 ' It is in a secondary sense of the term 'truth' that philosophy is "a sector in the quest for truth": exhibiting the grammatical foundations of any rational inquiry, and yielding generally accepted results, philosophy has nothing to do with

representation·,

and since the core of anti-realism is its anti-representationalist stance, this conception of philosophy is faithful to the spirit of anti-realism. Established results are needed, then, for the sake of rational argumentation, proceeding from certain "hard points" through several agreed methods. They cannot be seen as subject to change, since they are part of our most basic rational equipment

which we gradually

expose. In other words,

grammatically

speaking, rationality cannot survive in an open context where there are no criteria, i.e. where everything is open to doubt. In this way, we can interpret Dummett coherently as believing in the existence of unchanging philosophical propositions and in our ability to achieve them, without presenting him as a realist: his "truth" is indeed eternal, but not external; it is internal to our philosophical language, to the grammar of rationality. This grammatical position sounds familiar. It reminds us, naturally, of the one endorsed by Wittgenstein in his On Certainty. According to Wittgenstein, the possibility of doubt is limited; "that is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn. That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in deed

not

doubted"

(OC,

#341,342).

Wittgenstein

believes

that

every

judgement is maid against a stable background of convictions, a "hard rock, subject to no alterations or only to an imperceptible one" (ibid, #99); it forms a system, a structure, which is anchored in all our thoughts, "so anchored that I cannot touch it" (ibid, #103); "It belongs to the essence of what we call an argument. The system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which arguments have their life" (ibid, #105). And so on and so forth. The crucial point here is that "certainty" does not lie in some successful des-

31

'Secondary'

as in PI, # 282: "We do indeed say of an inanimate thing that it is in pain:

w h e n playing with dolls for example. But this use of the concept of pain is a secondary one."

30

Truth (2)

cription, corresponding to independent reality, but is internal to our "world picture". Philosophy, whose foremost aim is revealing this "hard rock", which is anchored in all our thoughts, cannot therefore be captured in realistic terms, despite its ability to arrive at "final results". The comparison with Wittgenstein is indeed striking. However, it seems to raise some difficulties regarding Dummett's view. Despite its being basic, Wittgenstein's body of "the given" seems to enable slow changes. "But what men consider reasonable or unreasonable alters. At certain periods men find reasonable what at other periods they found unreasonable. And vice versa" (ibid, #336). For Kekes, a similar point is made by basing every judgement on our "common sense", which, although very stable, may change slowly and slightly. 32 Does this apply to Dummett's idea of philosophical achievements as well? I don't see why not. The crux of the matter is the difference between what is generally accepted

and what is generally acceptable,

to which I

alluded at the end of the previous section. For, according to the Wittgensteinian picture, even the most fundamental and entrenched rules and criteria are criticizable. The question is on what ground they may be criticized at all. Wittgenstein leaves it to chance and time alone. Dummett's optimist version insists here on one important principle: deliberate revisions of even our most cherished norms and rules are also conceivable, but for that purpose what we need is a system; only recalcitrant incoherences in the "thin layer" may drive us to change parts of it. This account of Dummett's perspective suggests that we do not read his claims on the finality of established results in philosophy literally. For while we certainly need stability for our rational arguments, we can never be certain which of our cardinal solutions will indeed stay intact. As 1 mentioned earlier, Dummett's counter-example to the sceptic is "Frege's resolution, by means of the quantifier-variable notation, of the logic of generality" (TOE, p.454) This is undoubtedly a good example for a cardinal, well entrenched solution perhaps the best possible. But on reflecting upon it, we have to ask

32

See, e.g., p. 144 in Kekes 1980. Peirce is also known for his "èritical common-sensism", endorsing a similar view. See his Collected Papers, 1931-5, vol. 5, pp. 346-375. Indeed, it is interesting to compare Dummett's own view of common sense judgements, in SL, ρ 390f. where he rejects the picture of "a single, unified, permanent 'theory of the world', an acceptance of which... is simply part of what is involved in being a sane adult human being."

Metaphilosophy

31

ourselves: how can we be absolutely certain that this resolution will never be criticized, or even rejected? It is fundamental to our rational thinking; but so was, for more than two thousand years, Aristotle's logic! It was the most accepted and established piece of knowledge one could ever think of: we should just compare Dummett's confidence with that of Kant in this context. 33 So how can Dummett suggest regarding precisely its replacement as finaP. How can we be sure it will not have a similar fate? How, in other words, do we judge whether our general acceptance of Frege's solution shows that it is also generally acceptable, in principle? We have to acknowledge our inability to judge which result, among the acknowledged body of philosophical knowledge, is part of our everlasting kernel of rationality, and which is not. Thus the most optimistic attitude possible is that which regards philosophy approximating gradually to an ideal of truth, as in both Kekes and Collingwood. But this does not show that Kekes, Collingwood and Dummett are, in fact, realists. Rather, what makes a metaphilosophy realist or antirealist is simply whether it portrays philosophy as representing an outside realm or otherwise as expressing and shaping our own rationality. In this sense, not only Collingwood's conception, but also Kekes' test of truthdirectedness is purely anti-realist. And so is Dummett's metaphilosophy. What we get is a constructivist conception of rationality. Rationality is constantly evolving: some new rules and criteria replace others, but a thin and stable basis - a Wittgensteinian

"hard rock" - is forever stable.34 The

philosophical endeavour can be seen in this light as our continual constructing of our own rationality. A fine example of such a constructive view is found in Dummett's discussion of the relationship between mathematical analysis and the physical universe: "The magnitude of any quantity, relatively to a unit, may be taken to be given by a particular real number, which we may at any stage determine to a closer approximation by refinement of the measurement process; but no precise determination of it will ever be warranted, nor presumed to obtain independently of our incapacity to determine it. The

33

1929, Β viii.

34

Presupposing

such an unchanging core means taking the idea of a human form o f life

seriously. See m y discussion of "full-blooded" theories of meaning below for an elaboration of this claim.

32

Truth (2)

assumption that it has a precise value, standing in determinate order relations to all rational numbers and known to God if not to us, stems from the realist metaphysics that informs much of our physical theory" (SL, p.444, italics added). Rationality itself may be treated in the same spirit. Such a picture echoes both Kekes' and Collingwood's ideas. "At every stage in the scale, there is a datum or body of experience, the stage that has actually been reached; and there is a problem, the task of explaining this experience by constructing a theory of it, which is nothing but the same experience raised

by intenser thought to a higher level of rationality" (Collingwood 1933, p. 173, italics added).

2.3 Philosophy and other disciplines "Philosophy is, after all, a craft, as plumbing is." (LBM, p. 19) This is, no doubt, a very suggestive comparison, but all the same, it seems that a discussion of the relationships between philosophy and other disciplines should not dwéll on this one in particular. A recurrent comparison has always been drawn between philosophy and the natural sciences. From the first empiricists, through the philosophy of the Enlightenment and until the logical positivists, this comparison has had two main versions. The first emphasized similarity in method, as well as the fact that both science and philosophy strive to establish truths, and thus are concerned with facts', the second stressed philosophy's role as the framework of science. This latter attitude is not only characteristic of the positivists, but also of contemporary philosophers like Quine and Smart. 35 Dummett does not belong to this group. Nowhere in his writings can one find an allusion to philosophy as a tool for science's use. On the contrary, although philosophy is indeed an inquiry into foundations, "it has no purpose beyond itself' (LBM, p.240); it is not aimed at serving other disciplines. Nonetheless, Dummett's philosophy is often captured as a relic of positivist thought. I have already mentioned Mitchell's and Rorty's interpretations, but there are many others who regard Dummett as "the most gifted present exponent of one among [the positivist] family of doctrines" (Hacking 1982, p.52). These interpreters turn

35

See, for example, Quine 1970, and Smart 1968.

Metaphilosophy

33

for justification to Dummett's conception of philosophy as one sector in the quest for truth and to his call for an adoption of scientific methods by philosophers. Philosophy, like the natural sciences - and unlike history, for example - is required by him to be systematic in both senses mentioned above: it should develop an articulated theory and commonly agreed methods of inquiry and criteria of judgement. Such a conception is thoroughly criticized by Rorty, who classifies philosophers along the following lines: "Some philosophers have remained faithful to the Enlightenment and have continued to identify themselves with the cause of science... These philosophers take science as the paradigmatic human activity... Other philosophers... have concluded that science is no more than the handmaiden

of technology.

These philosophers

have ranged

themselves alongside the political Utopian and the innovative artist" (Rorty 1989, p.3). According to such a dichotomy, Dummett should clearly be categorized within the first group. But is this dichotomy a just description of the options offered to philosophers? Does it take into account a Kantian, or Hegelian,

intermediate position, or such modern opinions as the ones

advanced by philosophers like Habermas, Apel, Dworkin, Wiggins and, indeed, Dummett? Rorty attaches to every philosopher of the first kind, "whose hero is the natural scientist", the claim that "truth is out there", that it is "an accurate representation of the way the world is in itself', and that politics and art are "spheres in which the notion of 'truth' is out of place" (ibid). These beliefs are very far from the ones held by Dummett. Indeed, he does not think of himself "as auxiliary to the poet rather than to the physicist", as Rorty does (ibid, p.8), but neither would he choose the other option. Dummett indeed believes that "procedures governed by rational criteria provide the best chance of achieving success" (viz. truth), and that "over the centuries, scientific work has drawn closer to being a rational procedure than most other branches of human activity" (ORU, p.286); therefore, a slight resemblance between science and philosophy is unavoidable, particularly if we adopt Dummett's optimistic perspective and his antirealist conception of truth. However, as we have seen in the preceding section, it is a distortion of Dummett's intention to represent his view that "philosophical progress might more readily be made if we treat a problem area scientifically" (Mitchell 1983, p.57) - the term 'scientifically' remaining blurred - as the claim that "philosophising ought to issue in a set of true

34

Philosophy and other disciplines

propositions: declarative sentences that have been conclusively verified" (ibid, p.58). The fact of the matter is that Dummett manifestly renounces "irritating scientism", in an interview in Cogito. He concludes the interview with these words: "philosophy will never be a science, obviously, and I never meant to say that it was. But I thought at one time that a certain range of problems had been sufficiently isolated that there could be something resembling cooperative work on them. Now I feel a bit sceptical about that" (Co, p.3). These hesitant words cannot be interpreted as urging philosophers to imitate scientists. Despite his authentic "craving for generality", Dummett does not belong to that group of philosophers described by Wittgenstein as those who "constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does" (BB, 18). Another comparison which is often made is between philosophy and history. Indeed, the rejection of scientism amounts, in some cases, to historicism, viz. the claim that truth in philosophy always represents, and is conditioned by, a specific historical period. Dummett's conception of philosophy is usually interpreted as antihistoricist through and through. This is, again, a result of dichotomic thinking: one is either to admit that there is nothing more than historical contingency, or be entirely anti-historicist. But here, again, Dummett occupies - along with the other philosophers just mentioned - an intermediate position. A philosopher who has devoted most of his writings to an interpretation of his predecessors' views and their development can hardly be accused of ignoring the importance of exploring the history of his subject. He explicitly declares that his research of the origins of analytical philosophy is motivated by the fact that understanding these origins is "capable of bearing much fruit in an improved insight into the philosophical issues" (OAP, p.xi), and, moreover, is "a precondition of mutual comprehension" among analytic and Continental philosophers. On the other hand, Dummett distinguishes between such a historical

understanding

and a pure philosophical

activity. 36

For him,

philosophical problems are essentially different from problems in the history of philosophy. Hans Sluga regards this belief as characteristic of analytic philosophy in general since Frege. "To admit [the historical character of the meaning of philosophical discourse] would be to question the foundational

36

See his preface to OAP; esp. p.xii.

Metaphilosophy

35

nature of the analytic inquiry which Dummett correctly perceives as the precondition of the functioning of the analytic tradition" (Sluga 1980, p.4). Sluga believes this attitude to be wrong, since "the meaning of actual philosophical discourse is both historical and personal" (ibid, p.3). Although he admits that Dummett is not stuck within the realm of "objective, timeless thoughts", he regrets that "Dummett's recognition of the temporality

of

thinking is limited by the formalist interpretation of that idea he has inherited from Kant via Brouwer" (ibid). However, historicism is not a unified doctrine, as we might conclude from Sluga's argument. Even Hegel's historicism is rather different from the one presented and urged by Sluga. A more accurate account of historicism has to suggest at least two ways of admitting a historical perspective into philosophy. The first is Sluga's contingent historicism, which is directly motivated by his acknowledged pessimism. "One might, of course, argue that [the analytic procedure] will... reach the analysis of the most difficult philosophical texts. But there is little evidence in the actual progress of the discussion

to

encourage such hopes. After eighty years of debate linguistic philosophers are still not agreed on the semantics of simple proper names..." (ibid, p.4). A second - and to my mind more Hegelian - version of historicism is represented, e.g., in Collingwood's writings. According to Collingwood, "to avoid replacing a philosophical question by an historical one, [an account

of

philosophical method] must treat all... precedents as mere preliminaries of the main question: the final appeal must be to our own experience of philosophical work..." (Collingwood

1933, p.4). The reason for this is as follows:

"Historical thought concerns itself with something individual...; philosophy., is concerned with something universal: truth as such, not this or that truth..." (ibid, p.26). This historicist version

is optimistic. It acknowledges

the

historical process and its implications for philosophical results, but adheres to the idea of objective (or better, intersubjective) rationality, which continuously advances us towards truth. 37 It is in light of this second version of historicism that we may interpret Collingwood's use of his method o f ' q u e s t i o n and

37

Relevant to this is Dummett's

distinction between a history of thinkers (or "genuine

historical enquiry") and a history of ideas, or thought, which traces "the directions in which various philosophical ideas led and what were legitimate developments from them." (OAP, p.3)

Philosophy and other disciplines

36

answer'. 38 His claim is that the history of philosophy "is not the history of different answers given to one and the same question, but the history of a problem more or less constantly changing, whose solution was changing with it" (Collingwood 1939, p.62). In Kekes' words the same claim sounds like this: "[T]he recognition of something as problematic, the consideration of a theory as a possible solution, the categories available for the formulation of theories, the methods by which conflicts could be solved, all depend upon historical understanding of the traditional worldview" (Kekes 1980, P.217). In a similar spirit, Dummett remarks that "at a certain stage of the history of any subject, ideas become visible, though only to those with keen mental eyesight, that not even those with the sharpest vision could have perceived at an earlier stage." (OAP, p.3) Divorcing philosophy from science led also to comparing it with art, and with literature in particular. Such a comparison may take two forms. The first regards philosophy a unique branch of literature, and examines its special qualities as such. Here we may turn again to Collingwood as an example. In the last chapter of his Essay on Philosophical

Method

Collingwood ap-

proaches philosophy from the viewpoint of literary criticism. He treats philosophy as a special kind of prose, which also has affinities with poetry. Later, he distinguishes between some kinds of prose, and stresses the essential differences between history, science and philosophy as to their literary features. The second way of comparing philosophy with literature takes exactly the opposite direction, stressing what is common to all these disciplines: despite the obvious differences, they are all texts, and should be treated thus. This position, which is notably found in Heidegger and Derrida, is also advanced by Rorty. His claim is that "there is no way in which one can isolate philosophy as occupying a distinctive place in culture or concerned with a distinctive subject or proceeding by some distinctive method... All that 'philosophy' as a name for a sector of culture means is 'talk about Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Frege, Russell... and that lot.' Philosophy is best seen as a kind of writing. It is delimited, as is any literary genre, not by form or matter, but by tradition" (Rorty 1982, p.92). Rorty believes that such a conception of philosophy is an alternative to the Kantian conception.

38

Collingwood's anywhere.

particular use is in the realm o f political p h i l o s o p h y ,

but it may be applied

Metaphilosophy

37

According to his suggestion, philosophers "do not have arguments or theses", and the Kantian who thinks otherwise is simply unaware of his own limitations. "Kantian philosophy... is a kind of writing which would like not to be a kind of writing", he observes. One important symptom of this is the Kantian refusal to acknowledge the crucial role of metaphor in our language, as a third source of belief, alongside perception and inference. Such an acknowledgement amounts, according to Rorty, to thinking of "language, logical space, and the realm of possibility, as open ended" (Rorty 1989, p. 16); it calls for rejecting "the scientific idea that some new metaphor, some new philosophical idea, might reveal the permanent neutral matrix of inquiry"; and it presents "the poet and the thinker... [as] the unacknowledged legislators of the social world" (ibid, p.21). Rorty is right in his claim that there are two distinct philosophical "institutions", but while he is very sensitive to the delicate distinctions within "his" side (e.g. between Heidegger's 'poetic' view and Dewey's 'political' view), he is not as keen to mention some salient distinctions within the "Kantian" side, which he also calls the 'scientific' side. Thus he regards all the "Kantian" philosophers as united in total rejection of historicism (of any kind), in extreme scientism, and in conceiving of their aim as the accurate representation of the way the world is in itself. I have tried to show that these generalizations cannot easily be applied to Dummett, though he is certainly a dominant figure in contemporary "Kantianism". Dummett rejects scientism in philosophy. He neither aspires to imitate or to serve the scientist, nor does he conceive of philosophy as representing some independent reality "outside". However, he does regard philosophy as a sector in the quest for truth, 39 and as a rational activity, performed systematically. Dummett is not an antihistoricist either. His philosophy manifests his awareness of historical developments and changes, but his most fundamental belief amounts to resisting any attempt at reducing philosophy to history -or to literature, for that matter. Rorty accuses analytical philosophers of not being "much interested in either defining or defending the presuppositions of their work... [They] are not interested in historico-metaphilosophical reflections on their own activity" (ibid, p.24). This is true, in a way, because Rorty demands the impossible:

39

In the secondary sense discussed above.

38

Philosophy and other disciplines

how can we defend the presuppositions

of our work? Rorty himself, while

joyfully blaming analytical philosophers for "simply taking for granted" their basic views, accepts silently "the tacit presupposition which unites nonanalytic philosophers" (ibid, p.25). A philosopher - analytic or else -who believes there may be some permanency beyond the contingent may point to the great similarities between modern and ancient philosophy, Eastern and Western thought (and drama, religion, etc.); but he will never be able to convince his opponent: being a "prophet" is, eventually, a matter of faith. But the fault with Rorty's claim is much more severe: accusing analytical philosophers of not being interested in defining the presuppositions of their work, or of neglecting the historico-metaphilosophical aspect of their own activity, amounts to a complete misreading of this school in general, and of Dummett's philosophy in particular. For what were Frege's attempts directed at, if not, first of all, the clarification of the tool and method of philosophy? What was the debate between "ordinary language" vs. "ideal language" philosophers about? And that between adherents of systematic philosophy vs. supporters of piecemeal philosophy? As for Dummett, his reading of Frege and his version of the development of analytical philosophy serve precisely the purpose of founding his philosophical perspective on historico-metaphilosophical ground. But most of all, his incessant efforts to attain an adequate theory of meaning are nothing but an attempt at satisfactorily defining his metaphilosophical perspective. Let us then move on and examine what this perspective - better known as Dummett's anti-realism - consists of.

3 Anti-Realism: The General Picture Having laid the metaphilosophical ground, my purpose in this chapter is to argue for three claims: 1) Anti-realism

is best viewed as a general attitude with a positive

programme based on Kant's "Copernican revolution" and on Frege's linguistic turn.

2) Analytical philosophy does not merely offer methodological tools for solving philosophical problems. It is founded upon certain principles which, taken seriously, yield only one consistent philosophical position: anti-realism.

3) Most of the criticism of this position is based on a misconception of its programme, and stems from basic assumptions unaccepted by anti-realists. The choice between anti-realism and its rivals is actually a metaphilosophical one. *

*

*

What is anti-realism? Judging from its name, it is not an independent ' i s m ' , but an opposition to realism. This characterization is also backed by some of D u m m e t t ' s remarks, e.g. "the colourless term 'anti-realism' is apt as a signal that it denotes not a specific philosophical doctrine but the rejection of a doctrine" (LBM, p.4). Thus, if we want to understand what anti-realism is, we should begin by understanding realism. The problem is that there are many versions

of realism:

there are metaphysical

realism,

scientific

realism,

common-sense realism and moral realism; there is internal, or weak, realism; there are further versions of realism, which do not bear a separate name, and there are still other positions, which even do not bear the title 'realism' at all, but nonetheless

express realistic positions.

So where should

we

start?

Dummett has claimed that different philosophical debates share a common pattern, and that one side in every such debate can be characterized

as

"realist", in a general sense, independently of subject-matter. This conception

Anti-realism as linguistic Kantianism

40

of a common pattern suggests to regard realism, in all its forms and manifestations, as based on relating a class of statements "to some reality that exists independently of our knowledge of it, in such a way that that reality renders each statement in the class determinately true or false, again independently of whether we know, or are even able to discover, its truthvalue" (Re, p.55). This characterization seems to capture the essence of the traditional realistic position concerning material objects, viz. "the view that material objects exist externally to us and independently of our sense experience" (Hirst 1967, p.77). A general argument attacking all forms of realistic positions characterized thus, is, according to Dummett, "the strongest motivation for rejecting realism" (IFP, p.433); however, it is presented by Dummett merely as a "negative decision on the general issue" (ibid). In this, I believe, Dummett is totally in the wrong; moreover, since anti-realism's critical aspects can only be assessed via its constructive ones, it is only by acknowledging the latter that we can preclude several common misunderstandings concerning anti-realism. This much has already been recognized by Wright (1986) and Appiah (1986). However, both writers present the positive programme of anti-realism mainly as a verificationist theory of meaning. I, on the contrary, believe that verificationism is but another consequence of a more fundamental stance, and would rather present anti-realism's positive programme as a modern version of the main tenet of the philosophy of Kant, adjusted to contain Fregean ideas about the centrality and preeminence of language.

Hence I think it better to name this global anti-realist view

"linguistic Kantianism".

3.1 Anti-realism

as linguistic

Kantianism

Kant's main novelty 40 lay in the criticism of the traditional metaphysical discourse. Although Descartes, before him, already showed the primacy of epistemology to metaphysics in the philosophical reasoning, Kant was the one who first acknowledged the problems inherent in metaphysical discourse. This is the basic idea of his "Copemican revolution": if we cannot conceive of "the things in themselves", we cannot sincerely refer to them at all. The idea of an

40

See the Preface to the Second Edition of his 1929, Β xxii.

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

41

independent, external reality becomes unintelligible. Thus the suspicion that our concepts and theories do not match it is found incoherent, and hence we are freed of the famous empiricist anxieties. What should be clearly stressed in the present context is that although according to Kant's conception, any reference to the 'world', or to 'reality' can only be to them as conceived by us (since this is the only intelligible reference), this does not entail either an idealist or a solipsist attitude. On the contrary, his transcendentalism consists of a rejection of the latter ideas as dependent on the old metaphysical conception. 'Reality' is not discarded; it is only seen in a new light.41 Two crucial components of Kant's thought should be mentioned here. One is the connection between the "Copernican revolution" and the fact that reason is regarded as self-legislative in all the domains of our knowledge. The centrality of reason, shared by all rational beings, endorses a universal, nonrelativist point of view. One of the main tasks of philosophy according to the Kantian programme

is the analysis of our rational, human scheme of

concepts, or, in other words, the analysis of Thought. The other component is the requirement that this analysis be conducted in a systematic manner, resulting in some kind of doctrine, or organized scheme. Modern

analytical

philosophers accepted

these ideas only in part.

Somehow, there has usually remained in the background some part of reality independent of us. In other cases it is the idea of a non-relativist, universalist system that has been abandoned. Dummett's main contribution to the Kantian conception is the accommodation within it of Fregean and Wittgensteinian insights concerning the role of language, eventually resulting in the substitution of a theory of meaning for epistemology. 42 Frege's basic idea was

41

All this seems to lead to the rejection of any reference to the 'noumenal', or the 'thing in itself. The problem is not that this notion is gratuitous, or that we "know nothing of thingsin-themselves" (Devitt 1984, p.60); it is rather the unintelligibility of this notion according to Kant's own ideas. The last sentence of the chapter on Phenomena and Noumena (B 315) suggests that this was already clear to Kant himself, and hence Kant's conception of the noumenal world can be adapted to the non-realist components of his thought (see Putnam 1981, p.61f.). According to Putnam (1987, p.41ff.), these Kantian positions contradict the "realist" flavour of his second critique. I shall henceforth rely on this interpretation, adopting the term 'Kantian' as used in the First Critique, i.e. as the view which eventually rejects any meaningful reference to 'the noumenal world'.

42

It should be noted that the overthrow of metaphysics and epistemology is not total, and that the result is far from being sceptical, or naturalist; otherwise the term Kantianism could not fit it. I shall come back to these points below.

42

Anti-realism as linguistic Kantianism

that some of the terms adhered to by Kant, such as "intuition", "mind" or "thought", are not reachable ("communicable") as such; it is not enough to say, with Kant, that "objects conform to the concepts"; Thoughts, or "concepts", are not independent, or "naked"; they are grasped only as parts of sentences, or speech. 43 However, this idea of Frege was backed by what seemed to him an inevitable retreat to Platonism. It was Wittgenstein who first pointed out that Frege's linguistic turn should be intimately connected to the Kantian idea of the unintelligibility of what lied beyond our conceptual scheme. 44 It is from him that we get the first expression of anti-realism as it is formulated today: "I look at an object and say 'that is a tree', or Ί know that that's a tree'... But if all the others contradicted me, and said it never had been a tree, and if all the other evidences spoke against me - what good would it do me to stick to my Ί know'? Whether I know something depends on whether the evidence backs me up or contradicts me... Sure evidence is what we accept as sure, it is evidence that we go by in acting surely... It would be nonsense to say that we regard something as sure evidence because it is certainly true. Rather, we must first determine the role of deciding for or against a proposition" (OC, ## 503,504,196,197,198). However, this advance by Wittgenstein was made at the cost of the other, systematic, thread of Kant's thought. 45 Dummett's anti-realism fully absorbs Kant's "Copernican revolution" and the Fregean linguistic turn, but at the same time remains faithful to the other components mentioned: the universality of rationality and the systematic approach to philosophy. Thus, the core of the positive programme of anti-realism consists of a combination of the steps taken by Frege and Wittgenstein, in a Kantian spirit. I do not, at this stage, describe it in terms of meaning theories since I believe

43

See e.g. Frege (1950), pp.35ff and p.73.

44

This is obvious concerning the later Wittgenstein, but I think that one can easily interpret the picture theory of the Tractatus along similar lines. Consider, for example, #5.61: "Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits. We cannot therefore say in logic: This and this there is in the world, that there is not. For that would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case since otherwise logic must get outside the limits of the world: that is, if it could consider these limits from the other side also..." It is the "ideal" construction and orientation of the Tractatus that prevents it from being regarded as completely "linguistic Kantian", as Wittgenstein himself was, of course, the first to understand.

45

See Pears 1971, p.12; 1988, pp. 289 and 397.

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

43

that a direct appeal to such theories conceals the Kantian roots of the antirealist view. This is not to say that a discussion in terms of meaning theories misses the point; on the contrary, it is perhaps the most accurate way of dealing with the subject, according to its own assumptions. But there is nonetheless a way of expressing the general idea of linguistic Kantianism other than the detailed application of more technical terms. Such a direct way is rarely used by Dummett himself. He correctly regards it as no more than a picture, but he also maintains that it is "useless to carry on a debate in favour of one or other of these competing pictures as if they were rival hypotheses to be supported by evidence. What we need is to formulate theses which are no longer in pictorial language but which embody the intended applications of these pictures" (LBM, p.339). Contrary to this I believe that it is very important to keep these pictures as guidelines; our preferences and obligations are usually dictated by certain philosophical pictures, and not by specific theories of meaning. However, Dummett also uses wide brush strokes from time to time. Here is an example: "Philosophy can take us no further than enabling us to command a clear view of the concepts by means of which we think about the world, and, by so doing, to attain a firmer grasp of the way we represent the world in our thought. It is for this reason and in this sense that philosophy is about the world" (LBM, p.l). This is the core of linguistic Kantianism.

3.2 Analytical

philosophy

Analytical philosophy is a philosophical tradition, and like other traditions, it can be approached in two different ways: by citing a principle, or a group of principles, underlying the philosophical work done by its practitioners; and by supplying a historical analysis. Let us first draw the Analytic tradition's common features from Munitz (1981). According to him, analytical

philosophers aim at shifting the

traditional problems of knowledge to the realm of language and logic. In order to accomplish this, they attend to three types of themes: "1. A study of the role of language in communication and thought...

44

Analytical philosophy 2. An examination of the logic of inquiry or methodology, insofar as this

has to do with evaluating the variety of techniques and conditions for achieving true beliefs and warranted claims to logic. 3. A philosophical examination of the resources of formal logic..." What relates these themes to one another is the "attention paid to the use of language as the medium of communication of thought" (p.9). It is interesting to compare Dummett's own characterization of analytical philosophy to that of Munitz. Dummett focuses his attention on the conception of the object of philosophy according to the analytical tradition. It is "first, that the goal of philosophy is the analysis of the structure of thought; secondly, that the study of thought is to be sharply distinguished from the study of the psychological process of thinking; and, finally, that the only proper method for analyzing thought consists in the analysis of language" (p.458). Later, in IFP, Dummett regards the tradition's basic tenet, which is common to all its practitioners, to be that "the philosophy of thought is to be equated with the philosophy of language: more exactly, (i) an account of language does not presuppose an account of thought, (ii) an account of language yields an account of thought, and (iii) there is no other adequate means by which an account of thought may be given" (p.39). While Munitz and Dummett try to capture some guiding principles common to every analytical philosopher, Sluga attempts the second way of definition, concentrating on the historical development of the movement: "Analytic philosophy arose in reaction to a dominant naturalism. From the very beginning it opposed radical empiricism, psychologism, historicism, evolutionism, and subjectivism. In contrast, it concerned itself with logical, formal, or a priori questions" (1980, p. 186). Beginning with Frege, whom Sluga regards as semi-Kantian, analytical thought went along the following path: "Moore and Russell contributed ontological and epistemologica! ideas... Through Carnap the ideas of Frege and Russell were combined with problems taken from the critical positivism of Mach... As the analytic tradition grew it became more empiricist, more atomist, and less Kantian" (p. 175). Now we are in a fair position to assess Dummett's own contribution to the development of analytical philosophy. There is (almost) no dispute about the fact that Frege was the initiator, or the "grandfather", of the analytical school. Frege's main contribution was his decision to place logic (in his sense), or the theory of meaning (in our sense), as "first philosophy", i.e. as

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

45

that part of philosophy which underlies all the rest. According to Dummett, this decision effected "a revolution in philosophy as great as the similar revolution previously effected by Descartes" (FPL, p.669). I fully agree that Frege achieved a revolution equivalent to that of Descartes, yet I think that Dummett does not tell us the whole story; a crucial part, indeed, is missing. We can reveal it by reflecting again on Descartes's revolution. Descartes's basic idea was that philosophy deserves a clear (or 'scientific') method. His decision to place the problem of knowledge as the starting-point of all philosophy is a consequence of his search for such a method. The Cartesian revolution is hence primarily a methodological one; it is not supposed to establish

new

philosophical

content,

but

a new

philosophical

picture,

vocabulary or set of problems. It was Kant who showed this distinction of method and content to be incoherent. It was his "Copernicân

revolution"

which, by drawing the appropriate consequences of the Cartesian methodological revolution, finally completed

it. Regarding epistemology

philosophy" could not be a neutral, purely methodological

as "first

issue; its im-

plication was the necessity to reduce metaphysics to epistemology, rephrasing

its problems; this, in turn, amounted

to the

thus

disappearance,

alongside of independent metaphysics, of the independent world, and to the concentration on the phenomenological

world. This aspect of Descartes'

revolution is missing in D u m m e t t ' s story: like Descartes, Frege, too, proposed a method, which was supposed to be neutral and not to determine a concrete philosophical position. We were offered new problems, new vocabulary and the clearest and most accurate ever philosophical attitude towards language. Dummett thinks that "it would be a crude caricature of Frege to represent him as merely propounding an improvement on methodology" (ibid, p.668). This is of course true, as it would be to propound Descartes's achievement in this way; however, this much was clarified mainly after Kant had shown us the striking results of Descartes's revolution. What is lacking in Dummett's version of the story of analytical philosophy is, then, its (temporary) end: it is Dummett who does to Frege almost exactly what Kant did to Descartes. He completes the revolution, by exposing its hidden implications on specific philosophical judgements, and by showing the impossibility of a revolution which is merely methodological.

Dummett makes us see that analytical

philosophy does not consist of speaking clearly, or even of building various

46

Analytical philosophy

theories of meaning. Analytical philosophy claims something; it has a specific philosophical content. Taking seriously the basic tenets of the analytical school means understanding that Frege's treatment of thought via an analysis of language depends on having Kant's attitude towards metaphysics in the background. Only when K a n t ' s revolution is presupposed, does Frege's revolution get its full meaning. Here is how Dummett expresses this understanding: "We cannot ask what fundamental types of thing there are in reality except by asking what types of thing we refer to: it is in this sense that reality is the realm of reference... It would be simply senseless to ask whether there might not be other logical types of entity in reality of which we have no conception, or whether things we refer to by expressions of different logical type might not, in reality, be of the same type: the whole point is that we cannot separate the notion of the logical type of a thing from that of the logical type of the expression by means of which we refer to it... What we cannot in principle refer to does not exist for us: which is to say that it is not an intelligible thought that it exists..." (IFP, p.431). The linguistic turn has been interpreted by various analytical philosophers in two different ways. Some philosophers, influenced mainly by Russell, have emphasized

the similarities between

philosophy and science. For them,

philosophy is truth-pursuing, and in order to attain a systematic view of our concepts, w e are allowed to leave the commonsensical ground of "ordinary language", constructing a "theory", or what was sometimes called an "ideal language". This approach is frequently combined with realist, anti-Kantian traits, relying on such

"noumenal"

notions as 'direct reference'.

Other

philosophers, objecting to a scientific conception of philosophy, have held that philosophy does not aim at gaining truth at all, and that philosophical investigations should be conducted only piecemeal, by describing the modes of functioning of ordinary language. 4 6 Most of them adopt Wittgenstein's hostility to system building in philosophy, in a manner quite foreign to the Kantian spirit. As Pears puts it: "Wittgenstein's mode of presenting his philosophy does tend to blur the structure of his thought... He was not a

46

A typical example of the divergence and o f the lack of common ground between the two "schools" is the debate between Strawson and Russell concerning definite descriptions. See Strawson's criticism (1950) o f R u s s e l l ' s famous "On Denoting", and Russell's annoyed reply (reprinted in his 1973).

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

47

thinker like Kant, who bolted together an elaborate framework on which to hang his solutions to different problems" (1988, p.397). 47 However, philosophy as practised by these philosophers does remain loyal to both linguistic turn and Copernican Revolution. Since both approaches lead to abandoning certain crucial components of the original analytical programme, philosophers deduced that analytical philosophy necessarily

other

undermines its

own roots, and decided to abandon the Kantian-Fregean framework altogether, in favour of some version of either pragmatism, historicism or realism. 48 This conclusion is a little hasty, though, since anti-realism does succeed in overcoming the above division in analytical philosophy, returning, in a way, to its Kantian-Fregean starting point. On the one hand, it does not treat philosophy as if it were science; it does not use "noumenal" terminology; and, taking understanding of the actual use of language as its target, it describes meaning in terms of the actual use of words, or - more exactly - of sentences. On the other hand, it admits to the validity of some of the methodological insights of "ideal language" philosophers, organizing its conclusions in a systematic manner, and hence enabling criticism of certain common-sensical notions, which turn out to contradict others. Thus analytical philosophy culminates today in linguistic Kantianism, or the constructive part of anti-realism (regarded as a general attitude). It is, as we have seen, not only a general framework, but a philosophical position, which consists of a rejection of metaphysics, in the Kantian manner, and of a linguistic approach towards philosophical questions. A strange consequence of the above claim is that most of the philosophers who are normally thought of as 'analytical' do not really accept its tenets. I mentioned a few of these earlier, and may add, e.g., John Searle, who declares his strong realist assumptions. On the other hand, so called 'continental' philosophers like Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel express views very similar to those presented above. 49 This result may seem to show my claim to be problematic, to say the least. And indeed, other convincing descriptions and characterizations of the analytical tradition have been given. Peter Hylton (1993),

47

See Objection 6 below for a discussion of anti-systematic criticism of Dummett's views.

48

See e.g. Sluga, op.cit., who believes that analytical philosophy nowadays is "epistemological", empiricist, atomist, etc.

49

See, e.g., Apel's article (1991) against Searle's realist and mentalistic philosophy. I shall discuss Apel's view in the chapter Anti-Psychologism

Revisited below.

48

Analytical philosophy

for example, concentrates on the roles of Russell and Moore in shaping the tradition, and hence emphasizes almost the opposite traits from the ones I just cited, viz. anti-transcendentalism, atomism, and realism, as constitutive of it. A reasonable conclusion from his essay might hence be that Dummett cannot be conceived as an analytical philosopher at all. There is something very plausible in this suggestion as well, taking into account Dummett's insistence on system building and his transcendentalism, so typical of Continental philosophers. It is no accidence that Dummett emphasizes in OAP the role of Continental thought in his (hi)story of analytical philosophy. I am sure there is no "right" way to tell this (hi)story, and hence to characterize the analytical tradition. Nonetheless, I believe that concentrating on the emergence of analytical philosophy, and especially on the way both Frege and Wittgenstein absorbed the Kantian framework, we are entitled to conclude that realist theories of meaning do not belong to the analytical tradition, betraying one of its most basic presuppositions. In a loose manner of speaking we can, therefore, refer to modern analytical philosophy, linguistic Kantianism and anti-realism (as a general outlook) as one and the same. 50

3.3 Objections to linguistic

Kantianism

Many objections have been voiced against the philosophical picture drawn above. In the rest of the chapter I wish to discuss some of the major ones. 1. Metaphysical realism The first objection is best represented, in my opinion, by Michael Devitt. Devitt defends realism and attacks anti-realism by adopting two initial maxims: "distinguish the metaphysical (ontological) issue of realism from any semantic issue" (1984, p.3), and "settle the realism issue before any epistemic

50

It may be helpful to remember at this junction that Dummett's own investigation is conducted in a manner similar to the one I used here. See, e.g., the way he argues that phenomenalism is - contrary to our expectations - a realist position (Re, esp. p.84). My claim concerning the "right path" analytical philosophy should have taken resembles his claim about the way in which phenomenalism should have developed.

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

49

or semantic issue" (p.4). These maxims stand in complete opposition to the basic tenets of the analytical school: first, they treat metaphysics as an intelligible discipline, independent of human perspective; and secondly, they endorse a sharp distinction between epistemology and theories of meaning. What is Devitt's justification of his maxims? It is mainly the feeling that doing otherwise is putting "the epistemic cart before the realist horse"; this feeling is the result of a presupposed epistemic viewpoint - naturalized epistemology.

"I argue for realism by rejecting a priori epistemology.

Epistemology is made subsidiary to science and metaphysics: it is naturalized. From this perspective the case for realism is very strong" (p.5). The way to naturalized epistemology is simple, according to Devitt: first, we show the untenable nature of foundationalist epistemology, and then we face the task of explaining how we form our scientific opinions and why we treat them as 'knowledge'. But this smooth way to naturalized epistemology sounds a little suspicious; doesn't it take science and 'scientific explanation' for granted? Devitt frankly admits that this is the case: "An obvious starting assumption is the earlier-mentioned one that these [scientific] posits exist objectively and independently of the mental. So it approaches epistemology from a Realist standpoint" (p.64). Hence naturalized epistemology both justifies and is justified by independent metaphysics, and thus we get the happy result that "metaphysics

is put before epistemology and the latter becomes,

like

everything else, empirical" (p.67). How could the anti-realist convince such a realist that he is wrong? This seems to be an impossible task. The anti-realist, speaking from his analytical perspective, would like to conduct a dispute in terms of theories of meaning, since nothing else seems as clear and accurate to him; any other form of expression is regarded as metaphorical. This attitude, however, draws from linguistic Kantian presuppositions, to which the metaphysical realist objects. Devitt indeed complains: "Only a philosopher could suppose that our talk about language, one of the newest and least developed areas of knowledge, is clearer on the face of it than our talk about ordinary physical things, one of the oldest and most developed areas of knowledge" (p.203). According to his own perspective "the realist's conception of independently

existing

physical objects is the very core of common sense" (ibid). The anti-realist reacts by conceding that he is indeed a philosopher, and that he should hence easily observe the pitfalls of common sense language; but the realist retorts

50

Objections to linguistic Kantianism

that common sense should be the highest court of appeal even for a philosopher. Now, if he views the analytical position as a mere improvement on methodology, the realist may rightfully think it is superfluous, since "common sense", added to scientific results, are certainly sufficient for his talk about physical objects; but if, on the other hand, he treats analytical philosophy seriously and understands its claims, the metaphysical realist is right in keeping away from the linguistic game, since he is bound to lose there! Thus, when the anti-realist explains that we cannot transcend language, and that therefore any theory must be presented as stemming from semantic theory and must be evaluated by semantic criteria, the cautious realist replies that in his view "the [linguistic] turn is mistaken... a theory of language is certainly important but it is only one theory among many of the world we live in" (p.40). It is no surprise that Devitt finds the language of the traditional idealist more transparent than that of the modern anti-realist ("for we are all familiar with minds and experiences"! - p.203), because there he is, indeed, on firm ground: the idealist is obliged by the metaphysical terms used by the realist. This is exactly the reason why anti-realists avoid these terms. They believe that this is exactly where the idealist surrenders to the realist picture, and that Kant's correction, rephrased in Fregean language, is the solution to this problem. Thus, a metaphysical realist who understands the consequences of this change in perspective, prefers keeping the old vocabulary, in which he has an advantage. The debate, then, moves to the metaphilosophical realm. What is the aim of philosophy? What can it achieve? Which are its undoubted starting points? Devitt and Dummett cannot agree on any of the answers proposed to these questions. In their decision to reject the basic tenets of analytical philosophy, metaphysical

realists cut any means of communication

with analytical

philosophers (and vice versa, probably). Each of the debating sides sounds very persuasive, on the basis of its own methods and preferred methodolo-

51

Devitt appeals to yet another maxim: "In considering realism distinguish the constitutive and evidential issues" (p.3). What we have just seen casts doubt on the pertinence of this principle: on the meta-level, neither Devitt nor Dummett conform to it.

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

51

2. 'External reality' Some philosophers tend to agree with the main tenets of the positions attributed here to Dummett, but nonetheless are reluctant to admit their antirealistic tendencies, since they feel that 'reality' deserves more independence than that allowed by anti-realism. Davidson and Putnam are the most notable examples of this. Both are supposed to hold some kind of realist, or at least anti-anti-realist, views but, as a matter of fact, they disagree with most of realism's basic assumptions. Putnam used to present himself as an 'internal' realist, and now seems to favour the title 'pragmatic realist' (Putnam 1987, p. 17); Davidson rejects the realism/anti-realism

dichotomy altogether in

favour of a third view. Let us examine briefly their tenets against anti-realism on the above mentioned basis. Putnam rejects 'metaphysical' realism, according to which "the world consists of some fixed totality of mind-independent objects" (1981, p.49). The "deep systemic root of the disease", he argues, "lies in the notion of an 'intrinsic' property, a property something has 'in itself, apart from any contribution made by language or the mind" (1987, p.8). The alternative view Putnam has in mind "goes back to ideas of Immanuel Kant" (1981, p.x); it connects the notions of truth and rationality ("the only criterion for what is a fact is what it is rational to accept", ibid), and is best expressed by this metaphor: "the mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world" (p.xi). This position sounds very similar to the one described above as antirealism. 52 Davidson opposes to the idea that "truth... is entirely independent of our beliefs" (1990, p.298). He finds realistic positions "ultimately unintelligible", "for such theories deny that what is true is conceptually connected in any way to what we believe" (p.299). But the greatest error of realism, Davidson maintains, is its semantic articulation: correspondence theories. The idea of representation is false, since we cannot explain clearly what it is that is represented. So despite his past tendencies towards realism, or correspondence theories, Davidson now believes that "any complete account of the concept of truth must relate it to actual linguistic intercourse" (ibid, p.300). Although

52

Notice that the sense I attached to 'Kantianism' was borrowed from Putnam. For the relationship between his own views and Kant's positions see chap. Ill of his 1987.

Objections to linguistic Kantianism

52

Davidson, unlike Putnam, does not acknowledge any debt to Kant on this matter, his criticism of the realistic tenets is surely acceptable by any antirealist. So why are Putnam and Davidson so reluctant to be called 'anti-realist'? Though there are separate answers for each, the feeling that anti-realism does not do justice to 'external reality' is common to both. Putnam declares that his view "is not a view in which the mind makes up the world" (1981, p.xi); "there are 'external facts', and we can say what they are" (1987, p.33). It seems that Putnam thinks that a weak form of realism is still needed in order to conform to "the commonsense feeling that of course there are tables and chairs, and any philosophy that tell us that there really aren't... is more than slightly crazy" (ibid, p.3). Davidson opposes "epistemic" views in general (thus also rejecting Putnam's internal realism), because they are "skeptical", i.e. "they reduce reality to so much less than we believe there is" (1990, p.298). Coming from Putnam and Davidson, these complaints sound bizarre at the least. Having criticized the most basic tenets of realism, how can such a worry be expressed at all? This criticism of anti-realism must therefore be based on some kind of misunderstanding. The truth is, of course, that the anti-realist does not renounce reality. He just says, exactly as (at least) Putnam has it, that nothing beyond the role of that term in language is intelligible at all. "There is little to say about what existence is, however much there may be to say about what exists and why..." (SL, p.277). Instead of idle talk about "existence", what we are interested in are semantic values and how these are determined. "The semantic value of an expression will not be its meaning... since a sentence will not be directly determined as true or otherwise solely by the meanings of its constituents; its truth-value will, in general, be determined, given those meanings, by how the world is" (IFP, p. 150). Anyone would agree to that. Linguistic Kantianism does not, of course, suggest that only meanings determine truth. This is not the way in which he conceives of our language "creating" the world, as Putnam suspects. "There is no question of thinking that we create the world, or that the world is our dream, i.e. that there is no objective reality external to us. It is not up to us to decide, but only to find out, how things are... This is not, therefore, a theory according to which there are really only pure minds and their contents" (CP, p.221). What is claimed is merely what any Kantian would claim, namely, that the conception of such notions as 'the world' or

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

53

'reality' must be dependent on our concepts. An analytical philosopher adds the Fregean insight to this claim, when he says that our concepts are accessible, or expressible, only through language; hence the result is "reality is what we speak about - the realm of reference" (IFP, p.432). It is easy to see that this addition does nothing to renounce reality!53 What anti-realists do renounce is independent reality, and consequently the theory of correspondence; 54 but to this, we have seen, neither Putnam nor Davidson should object. I conclude, then, that the interpretation of anti-realism as relinquishing "tables and chairs" is wholly distorted, and that any philosopher accepting Kant's Copernican revolution and Frege's linguistic turn cannot hinge on the above criticism in order to repudiate the anti-realist proposal. 3. Anti-realism presupposes realism The third objection presents anti-realism as captured within the same old vocabulary of metaphysical realism, which it aims at avoiding. Davidson, for example, believes that "it is futile either to reject or to accept the slogan that the real and the true are 'independent of our beliefs'.The only evident positive sense we can make of this phrase, the only use that consorts with the intentions of those who prize it, derives from the idea of correspondence, and this is an idea without content" (1990, p.305). Putnam expresses a similar idea in relation to semantic theories. He maintains that it is time that we get rid of

53

This conception of 'reality' is quite similar to the one described by Rorty in his article "The World Well Lost" (reprinted in his 1982). Rorty's arguments spring from Kant's views, but he goes beyond Kant and criticizes the latter for holding that there is a deseribable conceptual scheme, common to all. Rorty's argument is based mainly on Davidson's own objection to the dichotomy of scheme/content. Despite the major differences between Dummett, Davidson and Rorty, I think that what the article shows is that the three conceptions o f ' t h e world' are, in an interesting way, quite similar to each other. In a later article, Rorty indeed criticizes Davidson for his occasional adherence to "an independent world". (See Rorty 1986, p.354)

54

Note that this rejection does not appeal to an idealistic argument, as the one used by Lotze, and mentioned by Dummett in IFP, p.394: "Lotze's argument, which is entirely different from Frege's, is aimed at establishing something like a coherence theory: it is, essentially, that it is senseless to suppose that we could compare our ideas with things as they are in themselves, external to us, since 'It is... this varied world of ideas within us... which forms the sole material directly given to us'" (The inside quote is from Frege's Logik, #306). Such an argument, which is much more Berkeleyan than Kantian, may indeed be interpreted as renouncing external reality altogether.

54

Objections to linguistic Kantianism

the traditional dichotomy "between what is a 'human projection' - what is not 'simply true', what has 'assertibility conditions' rather than 'realist truth conditions' - and what is in the things 'in themselves'" (1987, p.30). Fine (1984), Margolis (1986), Rorty (1986) and Diamond (1992) hold similar beliefs. In fact, it is hard to find many developed arguments in support of this claim. Prima facie, the accusation seems very odd, since linguistic Kantianism consists exactly in rejecting anything which is independent of us, and, as Dummett frequently shows, this amounts to rejecting the idea of representation. That from a Kantian perspective sheer idealism is to be captured as part of an inconceivable dichotomy was, of course, known already to Kant himself. 55 It is possible, therefore, that those accusing anti-realism on this basis do not distinguish between some traditional forms of idealism and phenomenalism, which are indeed captured within the old metaphysical vocabulary, and contemporary anti-realism. Another possibility is that some of the accusers cannot overcome the old picture themselves. Putnam, for example, complains against assuming that "we can make the distinction between what is 'simply true' and what has only 'assertibility conditions'" (1987, p.26) and expresses his belief that "epistemically at least, the attempt to draw this distinction... has been a total failure" (ibid, p.27). Surely Putnam does not mean that the practical difficulties in drawing the distinction serve as evidence that the term 'assertibility conditions' is a part of the old metaphysical picture; what is indeed part of such a picture is the word 'only' that Putnam puts in front of'assertibility conditions'. If assertibility conditions are regarded as a degradation of truth, then Putnam is right in arguing that the dichotomy presupposes, as a background, a metaphysical-realist

picture.

However, if truth cannot be understood otherwise than by adhering to assertibility, and the alternative, 'simply true', is mentioned just in order to show its futility, then the dichotomy eventually disappears, and nothing "metaphysical" is presupposed. Borrowing Lear's suggestion, 56 it may be said that the question here is whether the anti-realist takes the alternative to his proposal as a genuine empirical possibility. If he does, then he is indeed

55

1929, Β 69-71.

56

In a different context, i.e. the interpretation of Wittgenstein as a conventionalist. p.385ff.

1982,

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

55

incoherent; but the whole point of linguistic Kantianism is that a metaphysical realist alternative is taken to be unintelligible, hence not a genuine alternative at all.57 Arthur Fine also wishes to show that "the anti-realism expressed in the idea of truth-as-acceptance is just as metaphysical and idle as the realism expressed by a correspondence theory" (1984, p.54). Fine begins his argument by connecting anti-realism and behaviourism, and then by rejecting the latter since it "makes out everything it touches to be less than it is" (p.55). In this move, his argument does not go beyond the one discussed in the previous section. Later on, however, Fine embarks on what seems to me an interesting and important argument. His specific target is no one but Putnam, in his more anti-realist moments.58 The argument is directed against what we regarded earlier as the legacy of "ideal language" philosophy. According to Fine, 'truth-as-acceptance'

does not adhere to actual linguistic use but to an

idealization of it - to what people would accept under certain conditions. If this is so, he asks, "what are the ground rules for arriving at those judgements, and working with them as required?... To understand this conception of truth we must get a sense of how things would be were they different in certain respects from what they are now... this understanding involves at least either the idea of truth in altered circumstances, or the idea of truth in these actual circumstances. But each alternative here folds in upon itself, requiring in turn further truths. I believe there is no grounding for this process unless we turn away from the acceptance picture at some point" (ibid). This attack is similar to the following one by Davidson: "one suspects that, if the

57

Note that my argument here holds only if by anti-realism we mean global anti-realism, or linguistic Kantianism. A local anti-realist (concerning, say, propositions about the mind) cannot maintain sincerely that for him truth (in general) amounts to assertibility. It" he believes that there is more to truth than that (in other areas, e.g. regarding the physical world), then he does take the dichotomy as presenting genuine empirical alternatives, and hence Putnam is right: his use of the word 'only' is justified in this case and cannot be omitted. Realism cannot be a global, general, attitude towards every domain of our language; no one would maintain that propositions of every domain are determined as true or false independently of us. Therefore, a local anti-realist (concerning only one, or some, areas of knowledge) is otherwise a realist.

58

I already hinted at my conviction that Putnam's views are on the whole anti-realist, with a certain mystical touch: "[P]erhaps we can't help thinking that there is somehow a mindindependent 'ground' for our experience even if attempts to talk about it lead at once to nonsense" (1981, p.6lf., and see also the last pages of his 1991.) Recently, however, he has adopted a more pragmatist, post-modern, line.

56

Objections to linguistic Kantianism

conditions under which someone is ideally justified in asserting something were spelled out, it would be apparent either that those conditions allow the possibility of error or that they are so ideal as to make no use of the intended connection with human abilities" (1990, p.307). Thus, according to this interpretation, anti-realism, or indeed analytical philosophy, is under threat: its natural tendency to idealize seems at odds with its obligation to avoid transcending use. In other words, an anti-realist compromise between ideal and ordinary language philosophy is impossible. But is this so? I think not. Putnam indeed talks sometimes of "idealized justified assertibility" rather than of what is generally accepted, and hence is more susceptible to allegations of adhering to a sort of mysterious, transcendental realm, as long as it is unclear what sort of connection exists between idealized and common use. Dummett, on the other hand, never leaves the level of actual use. This does not prevent him from criticizing it, though: he simply employs his philosophical tool - systematic and clear exposition - in order to reveal incoherencies and tensions within this use. Thus the procedure of philosophical criticism does not differ from any similar procedure of criticism and revision in ordinary, non-philosophical, contexts. In any such context, we count on a set of rational criteria, treating them (or at least some of them) as more reliable than some arbitrary forms of behaviour, which have turned into "norms" due to historical "accidents". This attitude of ours certainly

does not presuppose

a mysterious

metaphysical level, but does it yield a notion of truth as something that can be lost? Davidson argues that Dummett "fails to give a clear idea of how warranted assertibility can be both a fixed property and a property that depends on the actual ability of human speakers to recognize that certain conditions are satisfied. Actual abilities wax and wane, and differ from person to person; truth does not" (ibid, p.308). Hence anti-realism "deprives truth of its role as an inter-subjective standard" (ibid, p.309). We discussed earlier the character of philosophical truth. We saw that regarding truth as what is generally acceptable should not result in a relativization of this notion. Counting on a thin layer, which constitutes rationality and thus is shared by every rational being, we can be certain that our notion of truth is not devoid of meaning; but as time goes by norms change, and some of our criteria evolve. It is hence true that although we think and act according to the presumption that there is a fixed thin layer, we can never be sure what its

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

57

exact content is, and as a result, we cannot tell which of the propositions held by us now as true (i.e. are now generally acceptable) will remain so. However, according to such a conception, truth cannot be lost. Nor does it differ from person to person. The fact that anti-realism can manage to be loyal both to common use and to critical thinking is indeed dependent on such a presupposed constitutive layer of rationality. This is the inter-subjective standard Davidson was looking for: the Kantian, transcendental grain of antirealism. 59 Does this answer satisfy the critic? It depends on who the critic is. I believe it should convince Davidson that anti-realism is not based on the old metaphysical discourse, and at the same time does not relativize truth. Davidson himself, after all, presupposes "the existence of a fundamentally rational pattern, a pattern that must, in general outline, be shared by all rational creatures" (1990, p.320). Fine, Rorty, Diamond and Margolis will not be convinced, though. They still think there is something very "metaphysical" about analytical philosophy, but this is because they object to any such rational pattern, hence to foundationalism and systematization. Although the issue discussed here is connected with that of foundationalism, I have tried to distinguish between the two, and first confronted Fine's understandable doubt. I shall return to the problem of foundationalism after considering some other objections. 4. "Pure" semantics Another objection to anti-realism is one which favours "uncontaminated" or "pure" philosophy of language to the "epistemological" one embedded in that position. The objection is raised by two different sources: one are metaphysical realists, who draw most of their arguments from the premises we have discussed above 60 ; the other is, roughly, the group of philosophers mentioned

59

Note that it is the realist conception of truth which cannot satisfy Davidson's requirement, for truth may serve as an inter-subjective

standard only if we assume that it can, in

principle, be apprehended by us. 60

Therefore I shall not discuss it separately here. The arguments 1 have not discussed above are very similar to the ones raised by the other group. See, e.g. Devitt 1983 and 1984, esp. chap. 12. Rorty (1986, pp.352-4) mentions the similarity and the differences between Devitt's arguments and his own.

58

Objections to linguistic Kantianism

in the previous section, regarding the debate on realism/anti-realism as being founded on obsolete metaphysical discourse. According to these philosophers, anti-realism stems from a sceptical view, which leads it to seek unnecessary foundations of knowledge. This mistaken attitude, says Davidson, is manifested by conflating semantics and epistemology: "Quine and Dummett agree on a basic principle, which is that whatever there is to meaning must be traced back somehow to experience, the given, or patterns of sensory stimulation, something intermediate between belief and the usual objects our beliefs are about. Once we take this step, we open the door to skepticism... When meaning goes epistemologica! in this way, truth and meaning are necessarily

divorced" (1986, p.430). Rorty continues

Davidson's argument and claims that conflating semantics and epistemology amounts to admitting "tertia" between meanings of words and the way the world is, but "the tertia which have made us have skeptical doubts about whether most of our beliefs are true are just not there" (1986, p.344). Among these tertia he counts "a conceptual scheme, ä way of viewing things, a perspective (or a transcendental constitution of consciousness, or a language, or a cultural tradition)." The picture we get of anti-realism, it seems, is of a descendent of empiricism, which is hence vulnerable to the same attacks. There is an obvious connection between this objection and the previous one: if anti-realism

is based on empiricist assumptions, then it is, after all,

"metaphysical", and it does contain a grain of realism. The connection with anti-foundationalism is also clear: Empiricism is of course foundational. Rorty combines all these objections, and as a result he regards the difference between Dummett's and Davidson's attitudes towards theories of meaning as representing the difference between the old, traditional, way of philosophizing, and the new, "pure", desirable way. There are several flaws in the above claims, but the principal one is that the position just described has nothing to do with Dummett's views. Dummett is far from being an empiricist of any kind; he objects to any picture of representation (or "tertia"), and he is certainly very far from scepticism. This becomes evident if we remember the Kantian basis from which he draws, and even more so when we add the Fregean and the Wittgensteinian influences upon him. What is, then, the real character of Dummett's merge of semantics and epistemology? To find out, let us trace some of Dummett's ideas about

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

59

meaning. The first step is asserting that "philosophical questions about meaning are best interpreted as questions about understanding; a dictum about what the meaning of an expression consists in must be construed as a thesis about what it is to know its meaning" (SL, p.35). Such a connection still keeps semantics "pure": the knowledge we are talking about is not about how the world is; it does not involve any kind of "tertia", and it is not supposed to overcome a sceptical doubt; it is, rather, a.simple formulation of Wittgenstein's ideas in his Philosophical

Investigations.6I

The next step is a

clarification of what it is that we understand, or know, when we know a language. Here, too, we get a Wittgensteinian answer: knowing a language is basically a kind of ability, which is manifested in people's behaviour. 62 In other words, in connecting meaning with understanding, and understanding with behaviour, Dummett follows Wittgenstein in his famous assertion that "the meaning of a word is its use in the language" (PI, #43). The philosopher's task is, then, attaining a clear view of this ability. Davidson accepts the last step without reservation. He indeed believes that in order to build a theory of thought, we should be provided first with a theory of truth, 63 but speaking of the desired theory of truth, he says: "What Tarski has done for us is show in detail how to describe the kind of pattern truth must make, whether in language or in thought. What we need to do now is to say how to identify the presence of such a pattern or structure in the behavior of people" (1990, p.295). These words reveal that Davidson thinks it is legitimate to associate meaning with use - but indeed, via the notion of truth. Dummett's next step is this: a clear view of the workings of our language should be achieved by constructing a theory. Davidson obviously accepts this step, having been the first to raise this suggestion. 64 Rorty, on the other hand, claims that nothing interesting can be said about truth or meaning, and hence rejects any attempt to build theories concerning them. Davidson reacts

61 62

T h e s e are adopted, by and large, by Rorty. Dummett

recently added to the description

of this knowledge

a theoretical

component,

arguing that "to regard the understanding of a word or an expression purely as a practical ability is to render mysterious our capacity to k n o w whether we understand" ( L B M , p.93). This addition does not affect our previous line of argument, and it will be discussed, along with C h o m s k y ' s views on the matter, in the chapter Anti-Psychologism 63 64

Revisited.

See e.g. Davidson 1984, p.215 and R a m b e r g 1989, p.7. "Theories o f Meaning and Learnable Languages", collection.

1965; it is the first essay in his 1984

60

Objections to linguistic Kantianism

by rejecting "deflationary theories of truth":65 those conceptions of truth, according to which Tarski has said about this concept all there was to say. Davidson believes that despite his crucial role in clarifying it, Tarski "did not capture essential aspects of the concept of truth" (1990, p.288). The only alternative to this belief is "to say there is no single concept of truth..., but only a number of different concepts for which we use the same word" - an alternative Davidson naturally rejects. Accepting this alternative belief yields an anti-foundationalism of the sort to which Fine and Rorty adhere. This attitude is discussed below.66 We may now take a further step and describe in detail what is included in the linguistic behaviour of people. What is it, then, that we learn when we learn to use language? "To act on, or respond verbally to, the assertions of others; to make assertions on grounds which fall short of being conclusive; to offer grounds for our assertions; to draw inferences; to ask and answer questions; to give, obey or flout commands; and so on" (SL, p.41). Here, it seems, is where "epistemology" gets in: when we take "offering grounds" as a basic notion in our explanation of assertion. What is it that bothers Davidson so much in this step? Offering grounds for our beliefs is certainly something that we do with our language; it is a common and important form of linguistic practice. Thus, if he agrees that systematic theories of meaning should be constructed, and that they should be based on our linguistic practice, why does he think that a connection between the meaning of an assertion and the grounds offered for it contaminates semantical theory? Before I try to answer this question, let me clarify it, by noting the context in which it is posed. The present discussion is devoted to the philosophical picture drawn by anti-realism, and not to its more accurate expression in semantical terms. My aim here is to describe and to face the main objections to this picture, which are raised by alternative pictures. The objections considered here do not concern this or that detail in Dummett's

65

The first to coin this expression was Horwitz (1982), who holds this position himself. Thus it is not necessarily an unfavourable name.

66

As a matter of fact, Dummett's view of the concept of truth is rather similar to Fine's and Rorty's in a certain respect. (See, e.g., "The Source of the Concept of Truth" in SL.) My present argument is not affected by this fact, since its whole point is Davidson's agreement to the construction of systematic theories of meaning.

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

61

proposed theory of meaning (e.g. his so-called "molecularism", or the rejection of bivalence) but the salient features of the proposed picture. Bearing this in mind, the only objection that Davidson may have to using justification as the basis of the desired theory of meaning is that he regards this move as adhering, eventually, to "the given". In other words, Davidson supposes that the last justification has to use some notion of sense data, or immediate experience, and hence it is doomed to be empiricist. Davidson's suspicion is understandable but unfounded.67 For there are alternatives to sense data serving as the basis of the procedure of justification. This is made clear by the following passage from Wittgenstein's On Certainty·, "giving grounds..., justifying the evidence, comes to an end;- but the end is not certain propositions' striking us immediately as true, i.e. it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language-game" (#204). This suggestion does not have to be interpreted, as it often is, as necessarily holistic. On the contrary. Wittgenstein clearly alludes to a hierarchy. The question is, of course, which grades are ranked in this hierarchy? Davidson would perhaps regard them as grades of truths, keeping the issue of meaning separated. But nothing prevents us from regarding them as grades of meaning; we are, after all, excluding here the possibility of propositions which strike us immediately as true. If meaning is to be explained in terms of our use, and if justification is one of the most fundamental uses we make of our words, then it seems that "our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language game", should lie at the bottom of our meaning theory as well. And this may serve as a starting point for a theory which is hierarchical, anti-realist, and definitely not empiricist. In fact, Dummett's major criticism of the logical positivists is precisely of their mistaken empiricist attitude towards the basic elements of the theory of meaning. The mistake lay in "regarding a possible verification of a given statement as attaching to it independently of the rest of the language, and hence as constituted by a sequence of raw sense experiences" (LBM, p.211). Rorty is bothered by Dummett's use of such terms as 'senses', or 'concepts'. He takes these to be autonomous beings, equivalent to the empiricist "givens". The truth is that Dummett's use of these terms renounces

67

An argument similar to the following and a related discussion appear in Kasher mainly in sections VIII-X.

1987,

62

Objections to linguistic Kantianism

"givens": analytical philosophy, according to him, holds that "thought is best explained by giving a direct account of the means whereby we express thoughts; a 'direct account' is to be taken as meaning one which does not presuppose it as already understood what it is to have the thoughts that are expressed" (LBM, p. 112). Dummett's use of the term 'verification' as the central notion of his proposed meaning theory is regrettable though. This term alludes directly to the same positivist position, which did involve representations, and hence could not survive Quine's criticism in his "Two Dogmas of Empiricism". I have no doubt that the use of 'verification' in describing the anti-realist's intentions led to a wide range of misunderstandings,

including that of

Davidson and Rorty. This is now acknowledged by Dummett himself, and indeed he has recently replaced that unfortunate term with 'justification', 68 which, in fact, is not only less misleading, but also more accurate in the present context. 'Verification' conceals a tacit adherence to truth, but as it is supposed to clarify our notion of 'truth', it is somewhat circular. 'Justification', on the other hand, is much more suitable to its pragmatist counterpart, 'consequence'. In both cases, we use inter-linguistic notions, and it is clear that we adhere first of all to our own reasoning. My intention here was not to criticize Davidson's own proposals, but to understand the source of his objection to epistemologized semantics. I hope I have shown that it is based on a misunderstanding of Dummett's position. This is not to say that Davidson himself is not misunderstood. In several places, Dummett portrays him as a realist, but this is surely not the best way to describe him. Davidson objects to the myth of representation in general, and to the correspondence theory in particular; moreover, he endorses a firm connection between truth and people's behaviour. It seems then that neither Dummett nor Davidson intends to adopt an empiricist philosophical picture. However, Davidson's attempt to avoid conflating epistemology and semantics remains unclear, both in its justification and in its consequences; the reason is that "there cannot be an aseptic logic that merely informs us how language functions and what is the structure of the thoughts which it expresses without committing itself to anything concerning reality..." (IFP, p.431-2); and such

68

SL, p.475. Earlier suggestions for preferring this term are found in Wright 1986, p.36f. and in Kasher 1987, esp. p.293.

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

63

a commitment is difficult to conceive without involving people's forms of justification. The attempt to separate the threads seems to fall back to the old picture both Dummett and Davidson have been trying to avoid. 5. Conservatism The next objections are not directed against the idea of linguistic Kantianism in general. Rather, they emphasize the implications of accommodating Wittgensteinian views within a Kantian framework. Jonathan Lear, in his article "Leaving the World Alone" (1982), points to the centrality in Wittgenstein's thought of the Kantian presupposition that we humans are "like-minded souls". Like-mindedness bears, for Lear's Wittgenstein, a direct consequence on his conception of philosophy: "There are certain things we just do. Philosophy tries to make us feel comfortable with our inexplicable, unjustifiable activities. That is, it makes us aware of what it is to be minded as we are" (p.388). An inevitable conclusion from such a narrow conception of philosophy is that "there is no room to offer philosophical arguments for or against beliefs and practices for which there are no reasons" (p.391). However, Lear himself cannot embrace an unrestricted conservative attitude with enthusiasm, hence he declares that "philosophy should try both to encourage self-understanding and to resolve the inevitable tensions that arise. Not all our beliefs and practices need be left intact" (p.391); although "one can argue for a revision only of a practice that admits of reasons for and against" (p.392). But to which beliefs and practices should we assign such a "bedrock" status? Obviously, the more of these we admit into our worldview, the more conservative we are. For Lear, logic is such a practice, and hence Dummett's revisionist proposal concerning it fails. But what makes Lear so sure that logic, in general, is such a practice? Lear frankly admits that this is his weak point: "Dummett's philosophical activity seems to be self-warranting: by the very fact that he can offer arguments casting doubt on excluded middle, it seems to follow that... we cannot place our belief in excluded middle as beyond explanation or justification" (p.395). Lear does not leave the argument there, though. Granting local attacks on this logical law, he refuses to accept a global anti-realism, i.e. our version of linguistic Kantianism: "Giving up the belief that 'S or not-S' is true, for each

64

Objections to linguistic Kantianism

undecidable S, is tantamount to giving up the belief that there is any aspect of reality that exists independent of our ability to verify that it exists" (p.397). Quite true, but why should we hold this latter belief, assuming our Kantian perspective? Lear's argument goes astray in this point. My own opinion is that here we face a personal decision. Dummett, with his optimistic and adventurous tendencies, cannot accept an extremely delimiting conception of philosophy; Wittgenstein, whom Lear correctly describes as "profoundly pessimistic about the possibility of doing transcendental philosophy - and thus philosophy - at all" (p.383), is bound to adopt a thoroughly conservative attitude. Thus I conclude that we may indeed build our view on extremely pessimistic and conservative assumptions, disallowing any reasoned criticism of our beliefs and practices; but if we do not adopt such initial limitations, we cannot raise, with Lear, a coherent mild-conservative objection to anti-realism. 6. Systematicity means representationalism Lear's Wittgensteinian objection is closely linked to the following one, voiced especially by Diamond. Taking linguistic Kantianism seriously means going with Wittgenstein all the way to repudiating system building, on the grounds that there may be no philosophical truths to be arranged

in a system.

Relinquishing the representational approach, we have to understand that no 'thought' is left to be represented by language in general, and by philosophical statements in particular. Hence, assuming the intelligibility of philosophical discourse - ignoring the inherent nonsensical character of philosophical propositions - means succumbing to a scientistic conception of philosophy. As Wittgenstein already showed us in the Tractatus, only empirical statements have the power to represent, hence to have content. Therefore, whoever endorses a systematic approach to philosophical truths, must be making the representationalist mistake of introducing a hypothetical nature into philosophy. However, as I showed in the preceding chapter, Dummett's use of the term 'truth' is manifestly not representational. It rather refers to generally accepted norms of action. His system is to reveal hidden connections between these, thus helping us gain a better understanding of linguistic practice. In this, it may be taken as an attempt to express our Weltanschauung,

or produce

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

65

a perspicuous representation of these norms, as in the following famous paragraph from the Investigations·.

"A main source of our failure to under-

stand is that we do not command a clear view of the use of our words.- Our grammar is lacking in this sort of perspicuity. A perspicuous representation produces just that understanding which consists in 'seeing connexions'... The concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental significance for us. It earmarks the form of account we give, the way we look at things. (Is this a 'Weltanschauung'?)" (PI, # 122). Moreover, as Dummett emphasizes throughout his work, a sincere and consistent anti-representationalist background

requirement

for

view is possible at all because

systematization.

Dummett

thus

of the

separates

Wittgenstein's anti-representationalism from his hostility to systematization in philosophy, claiming that systematization is not only compatible with that view, but moreover, helps to justify it. Anti-representationalism means, inter alia, a rejection of the centrality to an account of meaning of the notion of truth - a rejection immanent to linguistic Kantianism. But "it cannot be established that the notion is genuinely dispensable until it has been shown how a comprehensive and hence necessarily systematic account can be constructed without it (SL, p. 182)." As I emphasized earlier in this chapter, 69 systematization does not mean leaving the level of actual use and adhering to a transcendental realm. For "systematization or regimentation is not a process apart from our ordinary use of language, but wholly in line with it, differing only in thoroughness or in the technicality of the subject-matter from what happens constantly in ordinary discourse" (FPL, P.626). Furthermore, only a systematic perspicuous representation of our use may expose tensions and call for revision. "[I]n our constant endeavour to make explicit to ourselves the workings of our language, we seek also to sharpen meaning, to propose firmer connections or even new ones. We know that, with the passage of time, some of these connections will loosen, and new ones will begin to form: we do not seek to legislate for all future time, only to introduce enough rigidity at critical points to serve our present purposes in evaluating, revising, or simply conferring clarity on what we say" (ibid). Note the strong connection between this defence of systematization and Dummett's conception of a thin layer of rationality.

69

Regarding Fine's objection to linguistic Kantianism.

66

Objections to linguistic Kantianism

7. Anti-foundationalism The last objection to anti-realism I shall consider here is the one which attacks the analytical philosophy of foundationalism and rejects such a position as obsolete. In order to face it, we have to examine first in what way analytical philosophy is foundational, and then what is wrong with such foundationalism. According to one definition (Margolis 1986, p.38), foundationalism is "the belief that we possess a privileged basis for cognitive certainty". Is antirealism foundational, then? In one sense, it certainly is. This is the sense in which we can interpret Wittgenstein's On Certainty as devoted in toto to a criticism of scepticism. Linguistic Kantianism shares this attitude towards scepticism. Since no doubt can creep into the results of our self-legislative reason, hence a stable, thin layer of rationality may be interpreted as yielding "a privileged basis for cognitive certainly". However, this is not the sense in which we should read the attack on analytical philosophy. This is clear from the fact that Wittgenstein is always brought, in this context, as an example of anti-foundationalism. In this sense, On Certainty is interpreted as devoted not to a criticism - but rather to the uncovering of - the futility of the sceptical question as well as that of the foundationalist answer. What, then, of antirealism in this respect? It seems that here as well it may be read along Wittgensteinian lines. After all, it is anti-realism's belief that "it makes no sense to ask what the structure of the world is, independent of the conceptual categories in accord with which (however changeably) the question is asked" (ibid) - and from this the denial of the sceptical challenge immediately follows. But this, again, is not the sense of 'foundationalism' with which antirealism is charged. How do I know that? Well, the position just quoted as the anti-realist belief is Margolis's own position, on the basis of which he attacks such foundationalist views as those who endorse the realist/anti-realist demarcation! When Margolis speaks of anti-realism he surely does not have Dummett's global version of anti-realism - linguistic Kantianism - in mind. However, it is not my intention to claim that the charge of foundationalism is mistaken altogether. It is not. That much is spelled out by Rorty: "Dummett sees philosophy of language as foundational because he sees epistemologica! issues now, at last,

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

67

being formulated correctly as issues within the theory of meaning" (1980, p.263). If this is what is meant by foundational ism, Dummett is indeed a foundationalist. This, according to Rorty, is brought out by the assumption, quoted from TOE, that "the correctness of any piece of analysis carried out in another part of philosophy cannot be fully determined until we know with reasonable certainty what form a correct theory of meaning for our language must take" (p.454). Dummett's urge to construct a systematic theory of meaning is founded on this assumption. Since all this is true, we now have an answer to our first question, in what sense analytical philosophy is foundationalist. We have now to find out what is so wrong with being foundationalist in this sense. As already mentioned, Fine puts the blame on the effort of systematization, or building theories of meaning and truth. He urges us to "stop conceiving of truth as a substantial something, something for which theories, accounts, or even pictures are appropriate" (1984, p.56). As opposed to Fine, Rorty sometimes allows the construction of meaning theories, as long as they are "pure", i.e. do not try to solve old epistemologica! problems. He gives two examples of such a healthy attitude towards semantics: Wittgenstein's and Davidson's. Wittgenstein would agree with Dummett that "each speaker has an implicit grasp of a number of general principles governing the use in sentences of words in the language", but by granting this, he is not committed to foundationalism, says Rorty;70 Davidson's attitude is Rorty's favourite example of a "pure" attitude to questions of meaning and truth 71 , and it is certainly systematic. However, taking a closer look at Rorty's writings, we find that eventually he agrees with Fine. "For Pragmatists, 'truth' is just the name of a property which all true statements share... Pragmatists doubt that there is much to be said about this common feature" (1982, p.xiii). As Davidson is fully aware, his systematic attitude cannot possibly frame into such an assumption. This is exactly what prevents him from adopting a deflationist theory of truth, since he is not prepared to say, pace Fine and Rorty, that "there is no single concept of truth... but only a number of different concepts for which we use the same word" (1990, p.288).

70

In 1982, p.xlv; he quotes from Dummett's TOE, p.453.

71

See esp. his 1986, part I of 1989, and the preface he wrote for Murphy 1990.

68

Objections to linguistic Kantianism

Thus the debate goes back to the same metaphilosophical debate to which I have alluded several times, in this and previous chapters. This is no new discovery for Rorty: "In the end, the issue is going to be decided on a high metaphilosophical plane - one from which we look down upon the philosophical tradition and judge its worth" (1986, p.351 ; and see also 1980, p.266). Crispin Wright thinks that interest in the realism/anti-realism debate is a must for every philosopher: "if our successors come to reject not the details but the very issue of the contemporary debate concerning realism, it will be because they have rejected philosophy itself' (1986, p.l). It turns out that the rejection does not have to wait for Wright's successors, as it is already endorsed by his contemporaries. In an astonishing remark, even Putnam expresses typical Pragmatist boredom when faced with the theoretical enterprise: "We can know that it is 'true', speaking with the vulgar, that the water would have boiled if I had turned on the stove, without having the slightest idea whether this 'truth' is 'realist truth'... or only an idealization of 'warranted assertibility'. Nor need we suppose the question makes sense" (1987, p.32). This opinion consorts with his urge to accept history's verdict and "live without foundations" (ibid, p.29). According to Putnam, philosophy's task is "providing meaningful, important and discussable images of the human situation in the world" (ibid, p.86). He tells us nothing, though, of the criteria for meaningfulness, let alone critical discussion. These, precisely, are what a "foundational ist" attitude aims to frame. As the debate turns metaphilosophical, it would be best to clarify further in what sense Dummett thinks of philosophy as foundational. A direct answer is given jn The Logical Basis of Metaphysics, p.239f. Dummett argues there that what distinguishes philosophers who seek foundations from those who deny that anything needs a foundation is the formers' interest in understanding and criticizing what we are doing. Thus 'foundationalism' is to be taken as the opposite of 'arbitrariness'. Trying to understand our practices we construct theories. We hence achieve a clearer view of these practices, and this in turn helps us to correct and revise them. For Dummett, then, 'foundationalism' - understood now as striving for systematization - is not motivated by a wish to ground knowledge, but rather by a wish to understand; it is not an answer to a sceptical doubt, but to a curious query. Such curiosity is not a justifiable tendency; it is simply a manifestation of Dummett's traits,

Anti-Realism: The General Picture

69

discussed in the previous chapters: optimism and adventurousness, i.e. his revisionist attitude. D u m m e t t ' s optimism leads him not only to take 'foundationalism' for granted, but also to think that it supplies us with means of achieving final solutions to philosophical problems. Metaphysics needs a logical basis not only in order to endow its propositions with clear senses, which force us to erase the unintelligible and understand the philosophical debates. The logical basis also enables us to give "knock-out blows" (LBM, p. 12): it provides us with exact criteria for choosing a correct philosophical picture. This belief 1 do not share with Dummett. Analytical philosophy draws its great strength from within. It is coherent; it does not ignore the history of philosophy, and does not cling to outdated positions; it answers the initial expectations of its proponents, and does not deny the usefulness and liveliness of the philosophical discourse altogether. However, its pre-suppositions themselves are not justifiable. As we have seen in the above discussion, conservatives cannot accept the adventurousness

involved with revisionism;

metaphilosophical

realists deny the analytical assumptions altogether as opposed to what they take to be "common sense"; pragmatiste, or better - post-philosophers, feel that the history of philosophy falsifies the optimistic assumptions of analytical philosophy and shows it as leading to an impasse. N o logical basis can give these philosophical and post-philosophical positions a "knock-out blow". On the other

(and

most

important)

hand,

analytical

philosophy,

linguistic

Kantianism or anti-realism are not threatened by these alternatives either. Conclusion: this book is written under the suspicion that there exists a great misunderstanding of the anti-realist proposal. There are many reasons for such misunderstanding, but I am sure of two: Dummett's use of the term 'verification' and his negligence of philosophical discussions in the pictorial, metaphorical, level. 1 have tried to correct this mistaken attitude here. As I see it, accepting anti-realism involves adopting certain metaphilosophical positions. Rejecting them amounts, in my opinion, to the endorsement of either a view which ignores certain crucial developments in the history of philosophy, or a critical - destructive - approach to philosophy in general. Thus, though my reasons are different from those mentioned by Wright, I agree with him that every philosopher (including Rorty) should be interested in the debate between realism/anti-realism.

4 Anti-realism: The Semantical Details The previous chapter concluded with the claim that a decision on an antirealist attitude is not based, primarily, on a specific semantic theory, but it is conditioned on a prior commitment to a philosophical picture. A metaphysical realist, who regards "common sense language" as clearer than a semantical discussion, and a "post-philosopher" like Rorty, who adopts an apriori pessimism about our ability to gain a clear, systematic view of the workings of our language, cannot be convinced by an interesting semantical suggestion on the part of the linguistic Kantian. We shall henceforth bear in mind that the outline of the philosophical picture of linguistic Kantianism is presupposed in the present discussion. What I aim to show here is, first, that Dummett's proposed framework is coherent and harmonises with the outline just given; and secondly, that its motivation grows out of Dummett's optimism and adventurousness, hence upon his belief in the autonomy of philosophy and its significance. By clarifying the inter-connections between the semantical ideas proposed by Dummett, and the way these hang together with his aforementioned beliefs, I wish also to counter Rorty's claim that "the analytic movement in philosophy... worked out the dialectical consequences of a set of assumptions, and now has little more to do" (1980, p.173). Now a word of caution must be added. Dummett resists regarding antirealism as a well-defined, worked-out theory. He believes that such a misconception may frustrate any effort to develop his programme further.72 However, despite his admonition to the contrary, I cannot but see Dummett as "putting forward a specific philosophical thesis of great generality...[and] as advancing a single unitary thesis" (ibid, p.464). This assessment helps us to frame a basis from which we may continue to evaluate and develop the programme. Dummett endorses a theory of meaning which * takes language to be its proper subject matter (thus rejecting the centrality of the concept of 'idiolect');

72

See "Realism and Anti-Realism" in SL, passim, but esp. p.473 and p.478.

Anti-realism: The Semantical Details

71

* is "full-blooded" and not modest: it allows for explanations of meaning which transcend the linguistic realm; * is hierarchical and organic: it opposes circular explanations, and rejects atomism, molecularism and global holism: theories which take the minimal linguistic units to be words, sentences or the whole language, respectively; * takes 'justification' as its basic concept, opposing to any truth-conditional meaning theory; and * adopts an intuitionist interpretation of the logical constants (thus rejecting bivalence). *

*

*

My discussion begins with none of the positions mentioned above, but rather with a more profound belief characterizing

linguistic Kantianism:

the

acceptance of some version of the analytic/synthetic distinction. I fully agree with Rorty 73 in taking this distinction to be a constitutive element of analytical philosophy. Rorty regards the Kantian foundations of the analytical school to be this distinction, along with another, that of the "given" and the "postulated" - a distinction rejected by Sellars.74 An adherence to at least one of these distinctions is a necessity to the analytical philosopher, he argues, and I agree. Sellars's criticism of empiricism is accepted by anti-realists. The view that "all awareness of sorts, resemblances, facts, etc., in short all awareness of abstract entities - indeed, all awareness even of particulars - is a linguistic affair" (ibid, p. 160) is already acknowledged by Frege, in his "context principle", viz. the decision "never to ask for the meaning of a word in isolation, but only in the context of a proposition" (1950, p.x). Thus it is obvious that a repudiation of Sellare' distinction cannot be an obstacle to an analytical philosopher. However, a total rejection of any formulation of the analytic/synthetic distinction is unacceptable to him. The most serious attack on this distinction is, of course, Quine's. Quine notably argued that there are

73

1980, p. 172.

74

See his 1963, passim, but esp. ch.I.

72

Anti-realism: The Semantical Details

no privileged propositions, i.e. that even the most obvious logical laws are not immune to revision, when confronted with experience. It is clear enough why Rorty embraces Quine's attack with enthusiasm; he constantly objects to anything "privileged", and regards a necessary truth as "just a statement such that nobody has given us any interesting alternatives which would lead us to question it" (1980, p. 175). But why does the analytical philosopher, who is supposed to be keen on "revisions", and who himself proposes to reject the law of Excluded Middle, not accept Quine's verdict?75 This looks prima facie like a contradiction on his part. Further reflection, however, reveals the reason for this attitude. Dummett writes: "Quine's rejection of analyticity is tightly connected with his denial that elucidation is a linguistic operation distinguishable from that of assertion... There is no place for the enunciation or explanation of the sense which is being attached to some expression" (FPL, p.601). When Quine suggests that we give up the distinction between analytic and synthetic, or between the grammatical and the factual, he is suggesting that we give up the notion of grammatical criteria. However, from a Kantian perspective, conceptual or formal criteria are the ones that ultimately constitute rationality - they are the highest court of appeal for criticism and revision. A linguistic Kantian rephrases this conviction by assigning privileged status to grammatical elucidations over mere empirical assertions. From a linguistic Kantian perspective, then, if we follow the Quinian line, we end up with no corrective, hence no rational revision is possible. According to Quine, revisions in our practices occur gradually; they consist of responses to scientific discoveries and new experiences, and the considerations relevant to them are mostly considerations of convenience. We are led by "our vaguely pragmatic inclination to adjust one strand of the fabric of science rather than another in accommodating some particular recalcitrant experience. Conservatism figures in such choices, and so does the quest for simplicity" (1953, p.46). There is no special role, for critical thinking, as linguistic Kantians understand this notion. We are back, then, to an aspect of the metaphilosophical decision discussed earlier. As we shall see in what follows, a decision to reject analyticity turns out to be closely connected to the adoption of a holist,

75

1 use the term 'analytical philosophy' in the restricted sense discussed in the previous chapter, i.e. as synonymous with 'global anti-realism'.

Anti-realism: The Semantical Details

73

modest, truth-conditional theory of meaning, which takes the idiolect as its basic unit. Allowing the "privileged" status of analyticity to some sentences, enables us to criticize our linguistic practices; this decision in turn yields a full-blooded, justificationist theory, which takes language to be primarily a social phenomenon. The present point can be summed up by the following paragraph from PI: "The fluctuation in grammar between criteria and symptoms makes it look as if there were nothing at all but symptoms. We say, for example: 'Experience teaches that there is rain when the barometer falls, but it also teaches that there is rain when we have certain sensations of wet and cold, or such-andsuch visual impressions.' In defence of this one says that these senseimpressions can deceive us. But here one fails to reflect that the fact that the false appearance is precisely one of rain is founded on a definition" (PI, # 354). For Wittgenstein, as for any linguistic Kantian, definitions, and hence elucidations of meaning, do have a privileged status. Indeed, I believe that the Wittgensteinian distinction between criteria and symptoms fares better with the spirit of anti-realism than the original one drawn from Kant, between analytic and synthetic statements. There are two interconnected reasons for this: first, analytic truths are best conceived as a "mere by-product of the procedure necessary for drawing non-logical consequences from non-logical premises" (FPM, p.26) 76 ; secondly, the notion of 'criteria' is wider than that of 'analytic truth', allowing for the inclusion of non-linguistic features such as "certain sensations of wet and cold, or such-and-such visual impressions". I shall therefore appeal to this distinction, rather than the analytic/synthetic one, wherever possible.

4.1 Organic and hierarchical theory of meaning The first question we shall discuss is the following: in order to understand a sentence, to which linguistic unit must a speaker adhere? An atomist would be satisfied by a naive representational theory, connecting single 'words' with

76

I shall develop and argue for this claim in the chapter on logic and mathematics.

74

Organic and hierarchical theory of meaning

'things'. 7 7 A molecularist would quote Frege's context principle and claim that we have to take account of the structure of a single sentence and the roles of the composing words within it. A hol ist would say that in order to understand a given sentence we need to understand nothing less than the whole of language. After all, "to understand a sentence means to understand a language" (PI, #199). Which position is endorsed by Dummett? If we take these definitions strictly, none of the above. As a matter of fact, I am not sure whether there are at present any real atomists, molecularists and holists at all. The rejection of atomism is one of the cornerstones of linguistic Kantianism, common to both Frege and Wittgenstein. I shall hence ignore it as a serious alternative for Dummett. We are left, then, with molecularism and holism. Dummett introduced molecularism 1973.

78

in a series of essays written in

A molecular view of language is defined thus: "[A]ny view on

which individual sentences carry a content which belongs to them in accordance with the way they are compounded out of their own constituents, independently

of other sentences of the language not involving those

constituents" (TOE, p.222). It may seem that Dummett generally endorses this view, but a closer reading of the above essays suggests a different interpretation. The above quote is taken from the article "The Philosophical Basis of Intuitionistic Logic", in which such a molecular view is indeed recommended. However, in the same year, in "The Significance of Quine's Indeterminacy Thesis", we are presented with another view. The importance of Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" is commonly thought to lie in the proposed holism and in the rejection of analyticity. Dummett finds this common reading to be misguided, since he recognizes the importance of the essay "in the fact that it displayed the possibility of an organic verification ist theory" (TOE, p.379). Quine pointed out that an empiricist version of verificationism is unacceptable, because it associates meaning only with sense-experiences, and thus is unable to explain our understanding of sentences which are not "peripheral". Quine's alternative is presented by Dummett thus: "[T]he model

77

I overlook the theoretical complexity of the term 'word'; it does not affect our present discussion.

78

Essays 14, 17 and 22 in TOE.

Anti-realism: The Semantical Details

75

is organic rather than molecular, in that, except for the peripheral sentences, it regards the understanding of any sentence of the language as involving essentially a grasp of inferential connections between it and certain other sentences of the language... [T]he understanding of a sentence will therefore depend, in general, on the understanding of a considerable fragment of the language to which it belongs, though not, indeed, to the entire language" (P.382). Dummett, following Quine, identifies the positivist's mistake of adhering solely to sense-experience with molecularism (p.379). He explains this in FPL, p.591: "When we look at [our actual] practice, we realize at once that it is only for a very restricted class of sentences that it is remotely plausible to say that their verification or falsification consists in the occurrence of certain sensations... The establishment of an empirical statement rests not merely on observation but proceeds via the mediation of other statements connected with it through deductive or inductive inference". There is no mention here of the requirement that the relevant statements share the same constituents, and the way Dummett formulates his objection to naive verification ism discloses his preference for the organic model, rather than the molecularist one. However, Dummett does not declare that he abandons his molecularism. On the contrary, we meet this term again in the essays entitled "What is a Theory of Meaning? (I and II)".79 In the first essay, the content of the term 'molecularism' is much vaguer than in previous essays, and is conceived mainly as an opposition to radical holism. Dummett uses it in order to emphasize the need for a hierarchical theory of meaning ("many-storeyed structure", p.32) and an explanation of all the levels, and not just the higher ones. In the sequel article the latter feature of molecularism plainly replaces the original definition of the term, and the independence of sentences sharing the same constituents is completely forgotten. Thus, without acknowledging it, Dummett converts his molecularism into an organic theory of meaning, quite similar to the one attributed to Quine: "An understanding of some one sentence will usually depend on an understanding not merely of the words which compose that sentence, and of other sentences that can be constructed from them, but of a certain sector of the language, often a very extensive one" (SL, p.44). From then onwards, Dummett sticks to this organic position, and

79

These are the first essays in SL.

76

Organic and hierarchical theory of meaning

eventually stops using the term 'molecularism' altogether. A new term, 'compositionality', is introduced in LBM. I, however, prefer to designate the latter term to a more general belief, described by Neil Tennant: "Whole sentences are built up out of individual words... The meanings of whole sentences are moreover determined (in their context of use) by the iterable contributions to sentence-meanings on the part of their component words" (1987, p.31). As Tennant rightfully notes, this belief is adopted by holists and molecularists alike. Of course, it is part of the conception of an organichierarchical theory of meaning as well. The rejection of molecularism does not make Dummett into a holist. Although it is now acknowledged that extensive sectors of language are needed in order to understand a single sentence, it is still crucial that such a sector should not coincide with the entire language. What we get is a picture of language as a structure, organized in asymmetrically dependent levels, resembling "a partial ordering, with minimal elements" (ibid). It is easy to combine such a demand with the organic view, but it contradicts holism. 80 An objection to Dummett's present proposal is brought by Neil Tennant. He regards this view as "a possible blend of globally separable local holisms" (1987, p.65), and launches a criticism of it on the basis of Dummett's own complaints against holism, from his molecularist

perspective.

For our

convenience, Tennant offers a list of such objections to holism on pages 5253. A careful reading of them, keeping in mind Dummett's suggestion of an organic and structured theory of meaning, may reveal that none is appropriate in this case: they are only apt where genuine holism is concerned. 81 Tennant carries on by presenting an alternative programme for a theory of meaning, one which adopts pure molecularity concerning the logical operators, but interprets the remaining part of the language in a holistic manner. The basic idea is that the nature of logical terms is essentially different from any other class of linguistic terms, and that while the meanings of the former are clearly

80

The clearest expression of the present view is in LBM, pp.222-223. The tensions between holism and a hierarchical-organic view, both attributed to Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", are pointed out in TOE, p.376ff.

81

This is because the present proposal clearly can, for example, account for how we do, in fact, understand new statements; it does not subvert the 'periphery-interior' metaphor, and enables us to explain how we can know something about another's beliefs without knowing everything that he believes.

Anti-realism: The Semantical Details

77

independent of any other linguistic fragment, other terms cannot be explained independently. Tennant thus agrees with Dummett in taking the revisionary ("adventurous")

motive as a leading position, and the justification

of

deduction as a necessary step. He simply confines himself to a revision of logic, and his opposition to Dummett's "blend" springs mainly from his conviction that our ordinary, non-logical linguistic practices can be neither criticized nor justified at all. According to Davidson, "the dualism of the synthetic and the analytic is a dualism of sentences some of which are true (or false) both because of what they mean and because of their empirical content, while others are true (or false) by virtue of meaning alone, having no empirical content" (1984, p. 189). Radical holism notably amounts to a complete dismissal of analyticity, and it is on this ground that Dummett disavows it. For without a grammatical backbone, which has no empirical content, no clarification of the interdependence of concepts is conceivable: "For language to be an articulated structure, there must be links which constitute the totality of sentences: it is the presence of these links which constitute the totality of sentences as a structure, that determine the position of each sentence within the whole... [W]e know of no way of formulating the existence of such connections that will not have, at least as a by-product, the effect of guaranteeing the truth of certain sentences, which will be precisely the analytic ones" (TOE, p.377). Such a backbone is provided by the hierarchical structure, since it is the "partial ordering" that stipulates grammatical truths, by determining an order of dependence and complexity of sentences. The levels in the hierarchy are organized the way they are by virtue of meaning alone; they determine which changes are fundamental and consist of a change of meaning. By repudiating this, holism - or even Tennant's moderate version of it - cannot avoid circularity. But a circular theory of meaning is not a genuine theory, for it only supplies us with a description of the linguistic practice. Dummett relates this to the Fregean postulate that a sentence expresses a thought, or has a content. A theory of meaning is one which specifies such contents, whereas any content must be capable of being grasped in its entirety. A circular conception

excludes this possibility. 82 A circular description,

however

systematic, prevents us from getting a clear view, hence it precludes a critical

82

For a more detailed discussion of this point, see RE, p.248f.

78

Organic and hierarchical theory of meaning

stance. A normative attitude presupposes a grammatical, purely conceptual, level, on which it leans. Now it is crucial to notice that although Dummett's argument is elaborate and reasonable, it does not show holism to be wrong; he never conclusively establishes his conviction that every linguistic practice, not only the logical one, may be rendered hierarchically and systematically, allowing for justification or criticism. On the contrary, Dummett often confesses that he has no conclusive argument against holism, and therefore his objection is, in a way, only tentative. As he admits in his reply to Tennant, his choice of a different theory of meaning stems from metaphilosophical considerations: "The matter appears to me closely connected with the function of philosophy... Philosophy, as I understand it, is essentially devoted to... enabling us, in Wittgenstein's phrase, to command a clear view of the workings of our language and hence the processes of our thought. The theory of meaning is concerned only with the general form of a representation of content, but is fundamental for just that reason: linguistic holism, which rejects, wholly or largely, the need for any such representation, thus inadvertently runs counter to the entire philosophical enterprise, which is why it demands critical study" (RE, pp.251-2). Dummett takes one more step in characterizing the desired organic-hierarchical theory, which I find unnecessary. He insists that the organs constituting the basic level of analysis should be autonomous. In other words, he holds that "to understand a sentence of a given language, one must know some fragment of that language, in which, of course, much would be incapable of being expressed, but which could in principle constitute an entire language" (LBM, p.222, italics added). Dummett seems to adopt Wittgenstein's conception of "complete primitive languages" (PI, #2), in order to construct his theory of meaning according to the latter's insight that to understand a sentence is to understand a language: while a word, or a sentence, cannot be conceived as an independent unit, a linguistic fragment can, and thus our theory directly manifests the connection between understanding a word, a sentence and a language. I, on the other hand, despite accepting Wittgenstein's tenet,83 believe that a linguistic Kantian should

83

Indeed 1 find that combining it with Frege's context principle is a wonderful, concise way of delivering the content of linguistic Kantianism.

Anti-realism: The Semantical Details

79

always be suspicious of "primitive language games"; although they may be used as examples, or as abstract models, adherence to them as potentially complete, or independent, languages, is problematic. It may lead to ignoring some aspects of our reasoning abilities, which depend on the complexity of language and hence do not find their place in primitive languages, or in small fragments. Wright seems to interpret Dummett's requirement as demanding merely that "at each stage, competencies will be possessed which are, in a certain sense, complete

at that stage - which continue unmodified into

subsequent stages" (1986, p.335). This is a natural and justified requirement of anti-realism, without which the status of analytic statements would be endangered. If Dummett's requirement amounts only to this, then the expression "an entire language" above is out of place.

4.2 Language, idiolects and the role of conventions Defending the distinction between criteria and symptoms, I earlier quoted Wittgenstein's

reminder

of the primacy

of definitions over empirical

statements. The next paragraph in Philosophical

Investigations

continues the

same theme: "The point here is not that our sense-impressions can lie, but that we understand their language. (And this language like any other is founded on convention)" (#355). We have reached the Wittgensteinian

part of Dummett's

thought.

Language is primarily a social institution: it cannot be understood otherwise. The emphasis on this feature concerns, first of all, the choice of language as the proper subject matter of the meaning theorist, but it has further implications on the details of the required theory. The litmus question here concerns the status of convention, and the alternatives are: thinking, with Wittgenstein, that any language is necessarily founded on convention; or otherwise agreeing with Davidson, that "philosophers who make convention a necessary element in language have the matter backwards. The truth is rather that language is a condition for having conventions" (1984, p.280). Let us reflect upon this second alternative. According to it, knowledge of conventions is not denied; it is its crucial role in understanding the essence of language which is repudiated. Conventions, in other words, are "a usual, though contingent, feature" (ibid) of language. What is Davidson's reason for

80

Language, idiolects and the role of conventions

diminishing the role of conventions? According to Ramberg's rendition of Davidson's view, it is "that communication does succeed without the kind of regularity in the use of language that the conventional account presupposes" (1989, p. 101). Regularity only makes life easier for us, hence its importance is practical, and not theoretical. What does have theoretical importance is the fact that "different speakers have different stocks of proper names, different vocabularies, and attach somewhat different meanings to words. In some cases this reduces the level of mutual understanding; but not necessarily, for as interpreters we are very good at arriving at a correct interpretation of words we have not heard before, or of words we have not heard before with meanings a speaker is giving them" (Davidson 1984, p.277). This analysis drives Davidson eventually to the conclusion that "there is no such thing as a language" (1986b, p.446); there are only idiolects, or better - linguistic theories of individual speakers, in particular times, addressing particular hearers. The basic unit for a theory of meaning is thus such an idiolect (in this narrow sense), and the basic linguistic action we are engaged in is interpretation. In this way we reach the basic term of Davidson's theory of radical interpretation, and thus the foundation of his linguistic enterprise is laid. Davidson prefers to defend his denial of the centrality of convention more with the aid of alleged facts, and than with philosophical considerations. This is the case in "Communication and Convention" (1984, essay 18) and in "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs" (1986b). In both essays he points to the huge amount of malapropism, or abnormal contexts, that compose our use of language, and, noting that "you can't use a convention by breaking it, you can only abuse it", he concludes that regularity, or standard use, are unnecessary or even fictitious. Nonetheless, it is advisable to look for the philosophical motivations which lie behind the appeal to these "facts". What are, then, the motivations lying behind Davidson's claim? I believe that the major one concerns the repudiation of representational, empiricist and realist conceptions of language. This motivation is especially noticeable in Ramberg's interpretation of Davidson's ideas: "The concept of a language is itself a reification. For we never apply the exact same theory to any two speakers, nor even to any one speaker at different points in time, since the construction of a theory of truth for a natural language is not a computable process" (1989, p. 100). According to Ramberg, regarding conventions as essential to language is an aspect of such a reification of meaning: "it is only

Anti-realism: The Semantical Details

81

if we see meaning as something to be captured in the words we use, and conveyed by them from one speaker to another, that we think there must be something connecting the speakers, something - such as a language - they share, that bears meanings as a vehicle" (p.103). We cannot fail to hear Rorty's accusations echoed in these words: taking standards, conventions or criteria to be more than contingent amounts to consecrating them, or turning them into representational "tertia".84 This is a serious claim and it certainly deserves consideration. According to Ramberg, the Wittgensteinian attitude captured in the above quote leads directly to a version of realism. This version may be detected in Crispin Wright's characterization of "the objectivity of meaning": "the notion that the meaning of a statement is a real constraint, to which we are bound, as it were, by contract, and to which verdicts about its truth-value may objectively conform, or fail to conform, quite independently of our considered opinion on the matter" (1986, p.5). Such a conception is realist, since it is "quite independent of any actual human judgement or response on the specific issue;... if, perhaps per impossible, our cognitive abilities were appropriately extended, then there is a judgement about the truth-value of the statement which, provided we had made no other relevant mistake, we would be obliged to arrive at so long as it was our intention to keep faith with the meaning of statement as already determined" (p.27). It seems plausible indeed to demand of anti-realists to object to such a conception, reject objectivity of meaning and with it the centrality of conventions in our analysis of language. Wright rightly connects this issue with that of rule following, as originally raised by Wittgenstein. Our explanation of the relationship between rules and their applications bears direct consequences upon the question of whether adhering to a shared grammar amounts to a reification of it. Wright finds this issue "the most major challenge facing twentieth-century philosophy" (p.29), and indeed, taking it as representing the debate on the status of necessity at the end of the century, I wholeheartedly agree with Wright's evaluation. I disagree, however, with his initial treatment of it. Wright offers three possible attitudes towards the matter: a realist position, a Kripkean one and his own solution. The realist attitude counts on an ulterior standard, constituted by meaning itself. It reminds us of Wittgenstein's

84

See his introduction to Murphy 1990.

82

Language, idiolects and the role of conventions

metaphor of rules as rails: "Whence comes the idea that the beginning of a series is a visible section of rails invisibly laid to infinity? Well, we might imagine rails instead of a rule. And infinitely long rails correspond to the unlimited application of a rule... The rule, once stamped with a particular meaning, traces the lines along which it is to be followed through the whole of space" (PI, ## 218,219). The second attitude offered by Wright is the one Kripke regards to be Wittgenstein's solution to his alleged 'sceptical argument'. Interpreting Wittgenstein as totally rejecting the above metaphor, the 'sceptical argument' amounts to declaring that nothing we have previously done determines future applications of a rule. The solution turns to the community and its shared habits, thus restoring the role of society in determining the application of rules and expressions: "We must look at the circumstances under which these assertions are introduced into discourse, and their role and utility in our lives" (Kripke 1982, p. 108). Wright's third suggestion is his own. He denies the alleged problem raised by Kripke's Wittgenstein: "Understanding cannot always be achieved via uniquely rational extrapolation from sample uses and explanations; and is not usually. Rather the path to understanding exploits certain natural propensities which we have, propensities to react and judge in particular ways... We have to recognize that our judgements about what counts as ['going in the same way'] are ceaselessly determined by features of our sub-rational natures... (Wright 1986, p.28). According to Wright, then, Dummett's anti-realist seems to face three alternatives:85 a realist, objective conception of meaning; a sceptical attitude like Kripke's; or Wright's sub-rational explanation. What can Dummett's choice be? Obviously, he cannot be a realist. Like Ramberg and Rorty he

85

Wright does not mention the Davidsonian attitude here. As far as I know, Davidson does not respond directly to Wittgenstein's challenge in his rule-following problem. Indeed, in the absence of meaning, language and regularity, it seems that the problem cannot arise at all. In fact, though, it just lurks behind the talk of interpretation- as basic. The fact that radical interpretation is so successful is explained by "the pattern of inference and structure created by the logical constants... if we can apply our general method of interpretation to a speaker at all - if we can make even a start in understanding him on the assumption that his language is like ours, it will thus be because we can treat his structure-forming devices as we treat ours" (1984, p.279). So syntactical rules are allowed, and this is where our problem lies.

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objects to the reification of meaning,86 and he cannot accept such a determinacy of meanings, as depicted above by Wright, which renders them independent of our use. In his essay on Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics, Dummett writes: "It is undoubtedly true and important that, while in using a word or a symbol we are in some sense following a rule, this rule cannot in its turn be formulated in such a way as to leave no latitude in its interpretation, or if it can, the rules for using the words in terms of which this rule is formulated cannot in their turn be so formulated" (TOE, p. 172). Thus it looks as if the Kripkean alternative may appeal to Dummett; indeed, we already noted his emphasis on the essentiality of the social practice in explaining meanings: "A language is a practice in which people engage... a practice is essentially social, in the... sense that it is learned from others and is constituted by rules which it is part of social custom to follow" (CDH, p.473). On the other hand, unlike Kripke, who suggests an unceasing procedure of interpretation, Dummett maintains that "interpretation, in the strict sense, is of necessity an exceptional occurrence" (CDH, p.471). In most cases, meaning is fixed, and no procedure of interpretation is involved in understanding. We are left, then, with Wright's proposal, and since it is a very interesting one, and the closest to Dummett's conception, we should elaborate on its details. In an article written about the tension existing prima facie

between

Wittgenstein's considerations on rule-following and Chomsky's project in theoretical linguistics, Wright's position is presented thus: our initial problem concerns judgements, and what we seek is a non-platonic explanation which will keep our judgements objective. In this context, we are introduced with the order-of-determination

test. "Truth, for judgements which pass the test,

is a standard constituted independently of any considerations concerning cognitive pedigree. For judgements which fail the test... truth... is constitutively what we judge to be true when we operate under cognitively ideal conditions" (1989b, p.246). Wright suggests that some of our judgements will pass the test ("extension-reflecting judgements") and some will not ("extension-determining").

The former cannot but be regarded

as reflecting

independent truth-conditions, while the latter indeed embody an objective

86

See esp. his reply to McDowell in RE, p.255.

84

Language, idiolects and the role of conventions

claim, though it cannot be detached from our own cognitive capacities. 87 Thus, the answer to the above problem is that "abandoning platonism need not involve abandoning the objectivity of rule-informed judgements. There remains the option of regarding such judgements as extension-determining, of seeing best opinion as constituting their truth" (p.257). In his introduction to Realism, Meaning and Truth, Wright distinguishes between three different realist positions, holding to the objectivity of truth, of meaning and of judgement. What Wright's later analysis of extensiondetermining judgements shows is that the appeal to the objectivity of meaning does not necessarily indicate that a realist position is adopted; we may abandon realism without forfeiting objectivity. Divorced from a platonic interpretation, the appeal to conventions consists only in a recognition of the normativity of meaning, which is a natural attitude. In fact, such an attitude is adopted by Wright himself, even in the same introduction where the appeal to the objectivity of meaning is attacked: "Meaning is normative. To know the meaning of an expression is to know... a set of constraints to which correct uses must conform". (1986, P.24). By saying that the meaning of a statement is a real constraint, we simply insinuate the existence of criteria and the fact that not everything in language is determined

by "symptoms". In his

comments on Davidson's and Hacking's ideas concerning language, Dummett reminds us of the celebrated dispute between Alice and Humpty Dumpty. He naturally sides with Alice, in acknowledging that words have meanings in themselves: "of course, they do not have them intrinsically, and hence independently of anything human beings do. They have them in virtue of belonging to the language, and hence in virtue of the existence of a social practice" (CDH, p.473). We have dismissed the realist proposal concerning rule-following as plainly inappropriate for Dummett; we have also showed that Kripke's proposal is partly in conflict with Dummett's view; it now seems that Wright's proposal, which is faithful to the normativity of meaning while not being realist in any way, fits Dummett's views. However, we now can, and must, return to the original Wittgensteinian question and explain what makes such a normativity of meaning possible.

87

Wright's example of the former is judgements concerning visually appraisable, threedimensiònal shape, and of the latter - those concerning primary colour. See section 111 in his article, ibid.

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Wright turns here to "our sub-rational features", espousing a position very similar to that of Lear. Both Wright and Lear interpret Wittgenstein as propounding a Kantian view, to the effect that every explanation is eventually founded on a shared human structure, i.e. "upon the fact that we tend to agree in our judgements, our modes of thought, our perceptions of similarity and relevance: on the fact that we are like minded" (Lear 1982, p.387). Davidson seems to share this view, when he assumes "a fundamentally rational pattern, a pattern that must, in general, be shared by all rational creatures" (1990, p.320). In light of our discussion of Dummett's basic assumptions in the previous chapters, it is clear that we may attribute a similar position to him. It is high time to recall that the aim of the present section is to defend the primacy of convention in an analysis of language. Introducing such a Kantian exposition of the Wittgensteinian ideas concerning rule-following, we are better equipped to eliminate another complaint raised by Ramberg against convention. Following David Lewis's analysis of convention (Lewis 1975, esp. p.5f.), Ramberg maintains that the appeal to conventions "presupposes the possibility that the point of the convention could have been achieved by conformity to some regularity other than the one that actually constitutes the convention" (p.100). 88 Prima facie

it therefore looks as if holding that

language is necessarily founded on convention contradicts the Kantian explanation just given: the fact that we are "like minded" confirms the unintelligibility of alternative regularities. Ramberg is right: the term 'convention', as it is ordinarily used, indeed seems to suggest the possibility of alternatives. However, we should be very careful in drawing any further conclusions from this terminological clarification. For what the Wittgensteinian suggests is that while every term in language is conventional, and hence has equivalent alternatives, our ability to apply it is explained by some non-conventional shared structure. This by no means amounts to admitting that an analysis of language can avoid conferring on conventions an essential role. In fact, such a misunderstanding has been anticipated by Wittgenstein, who rebutted it thus: "If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments. This seems to abolish logic, but does not do so.- It is one thing to describe methods of measurement, and

88

Davidson himself doubts L e w i s ' s analysis. See his 1984, p.276.

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another to obtain and state results of measurement. But what we call 'measuring' is partly determined by a certain constancy in results of measurement" (PI, #242). What Wittgenstein calls 'logic' can be easily replaced, in the present context, by 'analyticity', 'grammar', or 'convention'. These are not abolished by the prerequisite of agreement in judgements.89 So far there is nothing in Wright's position that may lead Dummett to repudiate it. Convention is put back in its essential place, without paying the price of realism and reification.90 There are two problems, though. By directing his explanation to our sub-rational natures, Wright seems to have transcended the linguistic level of explanation and opened a new discourse, of causes. Linguistic Kantians should resist such a transcendence. This, I believe (pace Wright) is the lesson we learn from Wittgenstein. When we reach bedrock we do not have to turn to the sub-rational. We simply point to the fact that this is our grammar, this is what constitutes our practice, this is indeed the way we use the relevant word, etc., relying on our agreement in judgements. We ask for justifications and reasons, not for causes. "'How am I able to obey a rule?'- if this is not a question about causes, then it is about the justification for my following the rule in the way I do. If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: 'This is simply what I do.'" (PI, # 217).91 Such a confident treatment of rules enables Dummett to be more assured of their objectivity. Emphasizing the cardinal role of definitions, he is indeed led to holding a semi-independent picture of language, i.e. a picture of language as dependent on social practice but not on every particular application of this practice. "But might it not be said that the rules lead this way, even if no one went it?", asks Wittgenstein (in RFM, IV-49). No, since the rules have no existence independent of social practice. There are terms

89

A thorough discussion of this point, with a similar result, is found in Baker and Hacker

90

In this light we may read PI ## 218,219 as endorsing, contrary to Kripke's interpretation, the allegedly realist 'rules as rails' picture, warning us that it is only a picture, bearing no metaphysical weight: "[M]y description only made sense if it was to be understood symbolically.- I should have said: This is how it strikes me. When I obey a rule, I do not choose. I obey the rule blindly."

91

The same point reappears in PI, p.230: "But our interest does not fall back upon these possible causes of the formation of concepts; we are not doing natural science; nor yet natural history..". Compare also Z, # 437.

1985, chap. V.

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which demand an interpretation in each application, as Wright shows; a term, or a rule, is far from being determined for all its future applications, and we may abandon some of the definitions altogether, as both Wittgenstein and Dummett acknowledge. But these phenomena do not amount to abdicating the conception of the normativity of meanings. While Wright does not relinquish this notion either, he sounds less assured of it, and hence confers larger weight to subjective interpretations. As we shall see in what follows, Wright's qualms stand at the basis of his objection to Dummett's revisionism. Right now it is important only to emphasise the fact that Wright does assume a level of normativity of meanings, regards language as essentially a social practice and assigns a necessary role to conventions. This latter point is connected with another issue, sometimes addressed by Dummett.92 Characterizing language as a social institution is far from regarding it primarily as an instrument of communication. The latter conception is called by Dummett "the code theory of language"; it presupposes the existence of "naked" thoughts, delivered by language, and hence entails a representational account, exactly of the sort objected to by Davidson, Ramberg and Rorty. What these philosophers ignore is the historical source of the repudiation of the idea of representation, viz. Frege. Dummett naturally follows the linguistic, anti-mentalist turn, and repudiates the "code theory" as unintelligible. He introduces instead a conception of thought as necessarily dependent upon a vehicle, language being the principal (but not the only) such vehicle. It is crucial to clarify here, that by 'vehicle' Dummett does not suggest any form of 'representation', since that would bring back the very picture he wants to reject. Rather, what is meant is that thought is embodied in our activities, and that the activity most accessible for philosophical purposes is the linguistic one. At this point we may return to Davidson's motivation. Davidson shares with Dummett the Kantian component of his views, in seeking a nonrepresentationalist

conception

of language.

What about the

linguistic

component, then? This component consists of eliminating the somewhat obscure parts immanent to the Kantian view (e.g. the appeal to intuition) by adhering solely to language. In accord with this principle, a theory of meaning should divorce the logical from the psychological, thus showing language to

92

See, e.g., CDH and the essay "Language and communication" in SL.

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Language, idiolects and the role of conventions

be fundamental to every epistemological account. When we take language to be essentially conventional, even in part, we certainly make a first step towards the realization of this goal.93 On the other hand, when we reject such a view of language, it is unclear whether and how we may still achieve the same goal; in other words, it is doubtful whether Davidson's account may be regarded as linguistic Kantian. Davidson's insistence upon the principle of the autonomy of meaning may suggest that it should be so regarded. According to this principle, speakers' ulterior purposes are separated from the literal meanings of their utterances, "in the sense that the latter cannot be derived from the former" (1984, p.274). However, if rules and conventions "must be understood in terms of intentions and beliefs" (1990, p.316), it is not at all clear what is left for the meaning deserving that autonomy. According to Davidson, understanding a speaker's meaning involves radical interpretation - interpretation of his or her "intentional action, desires, beliefs, and their close relatives like hopes, fears, wishes, and attempts. Not only do the various propositional attitudes and their conceptual attendants form the setting in which speech occurs, but there is no chance of arriving at a deep understanding of linguistic facts except as that understanding is accompanied by an interlocking account of the central cognitive and conati ve attitudes" (1990, p.315). This is the reason for Davidson's doubt about the centrality of conventions, which renders meanings as "magically independent of the speaker's intentions" (ibid, p.310). However, I believe that linguistic Kantianism should take such notions as desires, beliefs, hopes, fears, etc. as presupposing a theory of meaning, and not vice versa.94 Taking interpretation as the principal activity lying at the bottom of linguistic practice must result, eventually, in accepting a rather subjective picture of language. Davidson of course denies any linkage between his conception and a "private" picture of language. We may grant him then that his views are not solipsist, agreeing with Hacking in interpreting them rather as "duetist".95 Linguistic Kantianism emphasizes instead the public nature of meaning. As Searle rightfully notes, concerning Grice's account of meaning, "what we can mean is at least sometimes a function of what we are saying... We must, therefore,

93

The clearest demonstration of this point is found in Wittgenstein's OC.

94

For a similar recommendation by Apel, see his 1991, and the discussion in the next chapter.

95

Hacking 1986, p.458.

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reformulate the Gricean account of meaning in such a way as to make it clear that one's meaning something when one utters a sentence is more than just randomly related to what the sentence means in the language one is speaking" (1969, p.45). Having eliminated the charge that the phrase 'what the sentence means in the language' involves a realist view, the door is open for accepting an account of meaning which is not solipsist, nor duetist, but rather takes the public practice of rule-obeying as the most basic linguistic action.

4.3 A 'full-blooded' theory Dummett first introduced the terms 'modest' and 'full-blooded' in the article "What is a Theory of Meaning?"96, as two alternative attitudes towards theories of meaning. Advocates of a modest theory believe that "to demand of the theory of meaning that it should serve to explain new concepts to someone who does not already have them is to place too heavy a burden upon it, and that all that we can require of such a theory is that it give the interpretation of the language to someone who already has the concepts required" (SL, p.5). As opposed to them, those in favour of a full-blooded theory aspire "actually to explain the concepts expressed by primitive terms of the language" (ibid). The latter, according to Dummett, is the right attitude for linguistic Kantians. Pace Dummett, John McDowell defends modesty by claiming that precisely the opposite is the case, i.e. that modesty best suits the linguistic Kantian view. Moreover, since modesty is closely connected to holism and a redundancy theory of truth, McDowell deduces that a proponent of the philosophical picture described in the former chapter, whose foremost guideline is Wittgenstein's conception of language, should adopt this cluster of positions, rather than the one proposed by Dummett. McDowell presents Dummett as seeking an account of language 'as from the outside', trying to transcend our linguistic abilities.

97

His main point is

96

SL, pp. 1-33.

97

McDowell refers to an expression used by Dummett in the article "Frege and Wittgenstein": "If an enunciation of the equivalence between a sentence A and the sentence 'It is true that A' is the whole explanation of the meaning of the word 'true', then that word has, as it were, a home only within the language, and is of no use in giving an account of the

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A 'full-blooded' theory

that such an account, 'as from the outside', is unintelligible, since it necessarily involves a representationalist, empiricist conception of language, exactly of the sort rejected by linguistic Kantianism. It is a reductionist conception, which, in trying to avoid psychologism, turns out to be behaviourist. McDowell's arguments are powerful and persuasive, and his charges against an account 'as from the outside' the way he reads it, seem to me conclusive. I wish to argue, however, that his reading should not be ascribed to Dummett, and that the distance between him and Dummett is much smaller than it first seems. Dummett's starting point is the requirement that a theory of meaning should be, or should yield, a theory of understanding. This is a direct consequence of the linguistic Kantian treatment of epistemology in semantical terms. A theory of understanding captures the way people do actually understand

the sentences they hear or utter. Being

philosophical,

its

description is conceptual (viz. non-psychologistic). 98 It aims at an "articulation of the practical ability the possession of which is the manifestation of that knowledge of which the theory is presented as a theoretical model" (SL, p. 16). Since the greater part of such theories naturally concentrates mainly on the interconnections between linguistic terms, the debate between proponents of modest vs. full-blooded theories concerns their readiness to shed light on the linguistic practice even when primitive terms are concerned. While modest theoreticians make do with T-sentences at this stage, full-blooded ones believe that there is still room for elucidation even on this primitive level. Here, for example, is how Dummett suggests to elucidate our grasp of the concept 'square': "At the very least, it is to be able to discriminate between things that are square and those that are not. Such an ability can be ascribed only to one who will, on occasion, treat square things differently from things that are not square; one way, among many other possible ways, of doing this is to apply the word "square" to square things and not to others" (SL, p.98). This explanation differs from one which merely states trivial T-sentences, since a theory of meaning "may introduce theoretical notions for its own purpose,

language as from the outside: and this rules out, not only an account of meaning in truthconditions, but, equally, one in terms of verification" (FOP, p.247). 98

"We are talking about the spatial and temporal phenomenon of language, not about some non-spatial, non-temporal phantasm. [Note in margin: Only it is possible to be interested in a phenomenon in a variety of ways]." (PI, # 108)

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but, in that case, their content must be wholly determined by their role in the theory, and not depend on any prior grasp of the concepts they express" (RE, p.259). As examples of such theoretical notions Dummett cites "that of referring to an object, or that of saying that such-and-such is the case, or those of truth and falsity" (p.260). McDowell, quoting the above passage, rightfully notes that "any theory (of anything) would need to employ some concepts" (1989, p.59), and concludes that at least a partial modesty is hence compulsory. The trouble with the theoretical notions suggested by Dummett is that they may be taken as explanatory only inasmuch as we understand them, but, according to Dummett, our theory "fails in its explanatory task if it assumes an understanding of these notions without spelling out what that understanding involves" (ibid). What notions would serve us, then, in spelling out how we understand these theoretical notions? At first sight, it seems that a similar line of criticism is taken by Rorty, who also interprets Dummett as endorsing an empiricist, representational ist position. Rorty quotes Dummett's complaint against a modest theory, on the basis that it does not provide us with a way "of segmenting [a speaker's] ability to use the language as a whole into distinct component abilities" (SL, p. 16). Rorty then turns to Wittgenstein, Sellars and Davidson, in order to prove that there are no such distinct abilities, "for when you get rid of such tertia as 'determinate meanings', 'intended interpretations', 'responses to stimuli' and the like, you are left with nothing to split up the overall knowhow into component bits - nothing to reply to 'How do you know that that's called "red"?' save Wittgenstein's: Ί know English'" (1986, p.349). But it is precisely at this point where we touch the heart of the matter and where we get clearer about the difference between Rorty and McDowell, despite the first appearance. The question whether we should seek an account of primitive terms 'as from the outside' arises only after acknowledging the existence of primitive terms at all. Here is how Rorty continues his criticism: "Dummett's paradigm case of grasping the content of an expression is what you do when you observe that something is red. He thinks that the contrast between 'That's red!' and cases like 'Caesar crossed the Rubicon', 'Love is better than hate', and 'There are transfinite cardinals' is something which any adequate philosophy of language must preserve. But for Davidson's and Wittgenstein's holism there simply is no contrast. On their view, to grasp the

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92

content is, in all cases, to grasp the inferential relationships between these sentences and the other sentences of the language" (p.350). Dummett certainly distinguishes between the ways we grasp the first two examples." For we would not reply to 'How do you know that Caesar crossed the Rubicon?' in the same manner as we do to 'How do you know that that's called "red"?'. The reason, contrary to Rorty's suspicion, is not that in the first instance we deal with direct observations, in the spirit of empiricist epistemology: Dummett's organic attitude does not accept such an atomistic explanation. Our grasp of "that's red!" involves grasping the term 'colour', as well as other colour words;100 but it is a grasp of a convention of the English language. On the other hand, grasping the meaning of the phrase "Caesar crossed the Rubicon" involves understanding that what is expressed here is a fact, or, in Wittgenstein's words, a symptom rather than a criterion. It turns out, then, that it is Dummett's appeal to grammar and conventions which is faithful to Wittgenstein at this point: for it is precisely Wittgenstein's insistence on representing our practice as it is - rather than as a result of an a priori preference for one or another theory - that reveals that there are totally different kinds of sentences, deserving different treatments. An attentive examination of our linguistic practice exposes the mistake in overlooking the diversity of types of words and sentences. It is characteristic that Rorty does not mention T-sentences at all. He treats "all cases" alike, and hence does not acknowledge the difference among primitive and non-primitive terms. In the absence of primitive terms, there is no genuine need of T-sentences. But it is also characteristic that McDowell does make use of these sentences (see, e.g. p.60 ibid). He thus agrees with Dummett on the central point; indeed, he explicitly objects to equating "the thesis that the capacity to speak a language should be articulated 'from inside' content, on the one hand, with a picture of that capacity as wholly devoid of structure, on the other" (1989, p.72). McDowell does not oppose Dummett's identification of a theory of meaning with that of understanding; he does want to explain "how content... can be comprehended as a precipitate of simpler modes of activity and awareness than those in which it figures" (p.74, my

99

A discussion of the other two is more complicated, and is not needed here.

100 See, e.g., LBM, p.223.

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emphasis). Thus he acknowledges the need for hierarchy and the special attention to primitives. It should now be asked, what terms are available for us in order to achieve this desirable non-circular

account. McDowell

turns again

to

Wittgenstein: although a structured theory is desirable, and acknowledging the existence of primitives is necessary, these primitive terms should not be explained at all. Explanations do come to an end somewhere, and there we are left only with T-sentences. However, this solution completely ignores the fact (also brought up by Wittgenstein) that "the speaking

of language is part of an activity, or of a

form of life" (PI, #23). It is only in giving full attention to this fact that Dummett's

proposal differs from that of McDowell.

"The words and

sentences of a language mean what they do in virtue of their role in the enormously complex social practice in which the employment of the language consists" (RE, p.259). Such an understanding of our linguistic activity does not transcend

language, since language has this imperialist nature, of

swallowing anything that touches it. "We talk and act. That is already presupposed in everything that I am saying" (RFM, p.321). But only an appeal to practice, to extra-linguistic realms, rescues us from the scepticism attributed to Wittgenstein by Kripke (1982); since it is only if we forget that "there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation,

but which

is exhibited in what we call 'obeying the rule' and 'going against it' in actual cases" (PI, # 201) that we get Kripke's sceptical paradox. "What has to be accepted, the given, is - so one could say -forms of life" (PI, p.226) - and not trivial T-sentences; and our reference to these forms of life is not 'as from the outside', despite McDowell's worries. It is just that what fixes the meaning of a word, a rule, a concept, is neither an endless chain of interpretations nor T-sentences; rather, it is "our customary particular

way of applying

the rule

in

cases" (Malcolm 1986, p. 155). Shared patterns of behaviour are the

bedrock; they form the level in which explanations and justifications come to an end, according to the supporters of full-blooded theories of meaning. Admitting non-circularity, McDowell must certainly acknowledge the grammatical difference between the more primitive declaration 'That's red' and the assertorie utterance of 'Caesar crossed the Rubicon'. Now the question is: how is it possible to give an account of the meaning of the former? This question touches of course upon the analysis given in our theory

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A 'full-blooded' theory

of meaning to the notion of perception, or to observation claims. I take Dummett's 'full-blooded' approach to mean that we must give an account of the different contexts in which justification of such claims is required, and of the forms of life in which our unjustifiable use of such claims is embedded. Such an explanation in itself does not have to contradict Sellars' claim that all awareness is a linguistic affair; it is indeed a linguistic affair, but not always an awareness of linguistic facts alone. Dummett knows, of course, that explanations are given in language. The account just proposed in an outline takes 'justification' as the basic concept of the theory of meaning. The dispute over this choice is, indeed, the crux of the matter: it concerns the dispute between those who endorse "pure" semantics and those, like Dummett, who see the only motivation of semantics in its being epistemological. This brings us to the final section of this chapter.

4.4 Justificationism In our endeavour to understand the semantical details of linguistic Kantianism, we have already acknowledged the following crucial ingredients: a distinction between criteria and symptoms; a hierarchical structure, which comprises levels of complexity of concepts and expressions (these levels understood in an organic way); an adherence to convention as explaining (rather than explained by) language; and an established connection between linguistic expressions and non-linguistic activities, or "forms of life". We shall now see that these ingredients demand the introduction of an additional one: regarding justification as the basic notion of the meaning theory.101 A direct consequence of the distinction between criteria and symptoms is that the task of a theory of meaning should be that of accounting for only part of our beliefs. Thus "to know the sense of an expression is, by definition, to know everything relevant to determining its semantic value that needs to be known about it by anyone who knows the language" (LBM, p. 123); but in order to determine the semantic value of the same expression, we need also,

101 I regard the rejection of bivalence, which entails the dismissal of classical semantics, as a consequent of all the above. It will thus be discussed in the chapter Logic and Mathematics, applying linguistic Kantianism to these practices.

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in most of the cases, supplementary knowledge of other relevant facts, "that are not facts known to speakers by virtue of their knowledge of the language" (ibid). This is, then, how we get our basis for the theory of meaning: what matters is not the totality of relevant facts in general, i.e. not the conditions under which we attach the predicate 'true' to that expression. Rather, we should focus on the linguistic habits of the community of speakers. For example, "we shall say that someone knows the meaning of the word 'yellow' just in case his judgements of what is yellow agree, by and large, with those of others... The agreement is that in which his having [the capacity to recognize the colour] consists" (LBM, p.315). It is our necessarily manifestable practice of using expressions which counts as an explanation of their meanings. Thus the notion to be chosen as central to our theory of meaning should be "wholly accounted for in terms of the use a speaker actually makes of the sentences of the language" (p.317). This notion may be that of 'justification', 'warranted assertibility' or even the pragmatist suggestion of 'consequence'. I shall henceforth refer to this suggestion simply as 'justificationist', thus ignoring the delicate differences between these proposed notions. That this suggestion may serve as an apt linguistic expression

of

Kantianism seems to me evident and indisputable, but it turns out that my impression is extremely mistaken. Many philosophers take the above position to be motivated by the old empiricist craving for epistemologica! certainty, which denies the most fundamental Kantian claims. Such an interpretation of Dummett's views is expressed, for example, by Davidson: "Quine and Dummett agree on a basic principle, which is that whatever there is to meaning must be traced back somehow to experience, the given, or patterns of sensory stimulation, something intermediate between belief and the usual objects our beliefs are about. Once we take this step, we open the door to scepticism" (1986a, p.313). Ramberg clings to the same

interpretation,

applying it to the debate between realism and anti-realism: "The issue... turns on what to do about the alleged lag between assertibility-conditions and truthconditions. The anti-realist wants to get rid of it by suggesting that certain sentences - those sentences the truth-value of which might elude us even if we had all the evidence in the world - are not, like other sentences, either true or false. The realist wants to keep the gap open as a receptacle for metaphysi-

96

Justificationism

cal filler..." (1989, p.46). 102 These and similar interpretations of Dummett's views disclose a gross misunderstanding

of his most basic motivation.

Dummett does not strive to ground our beliefs; he is not a foundationalist, in the sense suggested by Davidson, seeking "to anchor at least some words or sentences to non-verbal rocks" (1986a, p.312); 103 and as we have already emphasized, he denies the distinction, or alleged "lag", between having "all the evidence in the world" (whatever this may mean) and "knowing the truth". Dummett's qualms concern rather those situations in which we cannot understand

what constitutes the knowledge of the required evidence, how we

could possibly lay our hands upon it, and how our understanding can be open to judgement by public criteria. He is motivated, then, by a desire to fully understand our linguistic practice, and not by sceptical doubts; he yearns for clarity, not for certainty. Dummett's qualms induce the manifestation requirement, which thus forms the most concise formulation of his anti-realism. 104 Many philosophers evaluate the manifestation requirement by examining its applications to different categories of statements, thus skipping the prior stage of understanding the general motivation which leads to it.105 But local arguments in

102 An almost identical formulation may be found in Putnam 1987, p.26 and p.3l. 103 I suspect that Davidson is half aware of this. In his discussion of the empiricist fallacy, he uses Quine's physicalist and behaviourist views (on "sensory stimulations", etc.) to show his point, and then lays the same blame on "other forms of verificationism". Not even scant justification is given to this generalization. 104 The manifestation requirement sometimes goes hand in hand with an "acquisition challenge", viz. the condition that the way every concept can be learnt be specified by the theory. Both requirements seem to stem from the same fundamental considerations. (See, e.g., Wright 1986 passim, and Tennant 1987, p.3) I, however, believe that the acquisition challenge, to the amount that goes beyond what is already embedded in the manifestation requirement itself, is wrong, since it is not the task of a philosophical analysis of meaning to give any account of how meanings are acquired. "The way in which language was learnt is not contained in its use" (PG, # 39); and it is only use which a justificationist theory wishes to describe, clarifying of what the speaker's knowledge of a term consists. Explaining a learner's ability to acquire new concepts is a scientific task, to be pursued by linguists, psychologists and neurologists; a philosopher trying to tackle it is led inevitably to representational ist, mentalist and empiricist explanations. This point was mentioned above when we discussed the objectivity of meaning, and will be raised again in the next chapter. 105 An outstanding example is Appiah's treatment of the subject. He treats the manifestation requirement concerning statements about the past as a representative of the general argument, thus getting two unwanted results: first, he does not understand the general motivation and hence his reservations are confined to statements about the past; but secondly, not understanding the general motivation, even his argument concerning this

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favour of an anti-realist attitude towards a specific class of statements, although possible, do not reflect a unified philosophical picture. As opposed to them, an initial understanding of Dummett's Kantianism as a motivation for his semantical attitude does exactly this. Seen in this light, what needs emphasis is the connection between the manifestation requirement and the claim that, given the unintelligibility of an independent epistemology, the theory of meaning must be responsible for an essential part of our theory of knowledge as well. However, in light of the distinction drawn above between sense and semantical value, it is clear that this does not amount to identifying what we mean with what we know: only that part of knowledge which involves knowledge of meaning is relevant here. In other words, meaning is correlated to speakers' knowledge thus: "The meaning of an expression is the content of that knowledge possessed by the speakers which constitutes their understanding of it" (LBM, p.82). 106 Thus meaning indeed "goes epistemological", as Davidson says, but without invoking "epistemic intermediaries", and without establishing "an epistemological basis, a source of justification". It is true that the anti-realist maintains that the meaning of an expression is to be explained in terms of the use made of it by the linguistic community, rather than in terms of independent truth conditions; hence he indeed emphasizes the fact that this use is part of "forms of life", i.e. connected to experience. However, this adherence to experience has nothing to do with the empiricist-foundational treatment of experience as "given". Rather, as we have seen in the previous section, it is here where the "full-bloodedness" requirement enters. At the bottom of the hierarchy of meanings there is an unbreakable connection to non-linguistic "forms of life". The point of the previous section was not to exhibit an alleged incoherence of "modest" theories. Rather, it was to show the coherence of "fullblooded" ones, and - by way of contesting certain complaints against them establishing them as linguistic Kantian. The same is true of the manifestation requirement. Once we have shown that the requirement is in harmony with linguistic Kantianism, we should not be bothered with the existence of the

limited case is itself o f f the mark. See his 1986, esp. ch.5 and pp.97-100. 106 It is important to r e m e m b e r that the distinction between sense and semantic value itself stems f r o m the s a m e linguistic Kantian motivation, since it is a consequence of stressing the intrinsically social character of language.

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98

opposite views; we would, however, wish to know on what basis anti-realism rejects these views, granted that they are themselves coherent. In order to do that, we should now turn to the alternative, viz. to the idea of truth-conditional meaning theories, and examine its applicability to the Kantian framework. According to the present formulation of this suggestion, in order to understand an expression we need to know all the relevant facts that contribute to its being true, in case it is true. Early attempts to construct truth-conditional theories of meanings, notably Frege's, still adhered t o a more naive picture. What Davidson (following Quine) helped us understand is that the combination of truth-conditional semantics and a naive picture, based upon the analytic/synthetic distinction, will not do.107 A direct result of this is the inseparability of belief and meaning, or theory and language. 108 Thus we should not recognize any difference between knowing a language and knowing "the world". Now, is such a proposal intelligible for a Kantian? On the face of it, it seems that the answer must be negative: the inseparability of meaning and belief entails divorcing meaning and truth; and we are led to agree with Davidson, that "truth, and therefore reality, are... independent of what anyone believes or can know" (1990, p.304). Truth thus becomes independent of us in a very non-Kantian way. A fine example of a semantical analysis along such lines is found in Putnam's famous article "The Meaning of 'Meaning'", 109 where a clear connection is shown to exist between divorcing meaning from actual use and connecting it rather with truth, captured in a realist, essentialist manner. As Ayer has summarized it: "[W]ater is to be defined as anything that possesses

this chemical

composition,

which

constitutes its essence, and we are asked to believe that this is not only what the words that stand for water must now be understood to mean but that it is what they have always meant, whether those who used them knew it or not" (1982, p.269). In short, meaning has nothing to do with the use made of expressions by the actual language users, manifestation of understanding is irrelevant to it, but a totality of independent "facts" is.

107 This is what I take as the chief result of his essay "Truth and Meaning", no.2 in his 1984 collection. 108 See Davidson 1984, p.187. 109 In his 1975.

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This interpretation, however convincing, is superficial and even distorted. This becomes evident if we bear in mind the changes made in Putnam's as well as in Davidson's views over the years. Let us examine, for example, Davidson's conception of truth, as expressed in the following paragraph from "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge": "What brings truth and knowledge together is meaning. If meanings are given by objective truth conditions there is a question how we can know that the conditions are satisfied, for this would appear to require a confrontation between what we believe and reality; and the idea of such a confrontation is absurd. But if coherence is a test of truth, then coherence is a test forjudging that objective truth conditions are satisfied, and we no longer need to explain meaning on the basis of possible confrontation" (1986a, p.307). Thus Davidson is able to maintain what prima facie seemed to us as two inconsistent positions. On the one hand, he binds knowledge, truth and meaning together by way of his coherence theory, thus introducing an epistemological component into his semantics, making it acceptable for a Kantian; on the other hand, he may still "accept objective truth conditions as the key to meaning, a realist view of truth, and... insist that knowledge is of an objective world independent of our thought and language" (ibid)." 0 It all depends on "a correct epistemology", says Davidson. It may be useful to mention in this context that we have already met a semantical suggestion which tried to combine the basic tenets of linguistic Kantianism with a "realist" conception of an objective world and an account of meaning by objective truth-conditions. I refer, of course, to the picture suggested in the Tractatus. Needless to say, there are many important differences between the conceptions of truth and meaning in the Tractatus and Davidson's conceptions. However, common to both is the linguistic Kantian idea that "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world" (T, 5.6). Alluding thus to the Tractatus may remind us that Davidson's T-sentences are no more "metaphysical realist" than Wittgenstein's pictorial relationships. Thus it now appears that Davidson's truth-conditional explanation of meaning may well serve as a candidate for linguistic Kantianism. However, Wittgenstein's Tractatus is an instance of a truth-conditional theory which acknowledges the analytic/synthetic distinction and adopts a sort

110 T h e term ' r e a l i s m ' is explicitly discarded in his 1990.

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Justificationism

of atomism, or "molecularism". According to Davidson, as we have seen, such a blend is incoherent; but before obliterating it, it is important to ask for Wittgenstein's reasons for sticking to this distinction. A familiar argument strikes us: "The requirement that simple signs be possible is the requirement that sense be determinate" (3.23); and "If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition had sense would depend on whether another proposition was true; In that case we could not sketch out any picture of the world (true or false)" (2.0211, 2.0212). Since holism does not square with systematization, it cannot be regarded as a genuine solution for Wittgenstein at that period. Although Davidson is reluctant to admit that this indeed is the case, Ramberg is quite happy to acknowledge this fact: "we should recall that a natural language is never a complete, clearly delineated entity, and hence give up the idea that a language can ever be modelled by a completed truththeory" (1989, p.61). Ramberg refers here mainly to the fact that language is an ever changing and developing phenomenon, which is impossible to pin down, since we never run out of additional empirical evidence. Wittgenstein was less occupied with evidence and his point is more substantial. A holistic theory of meaning takes for granted that our language cannot be entirely clear to us. Our conclusion, then, is that if a truth-conditional theory is inevitably holistic, and if Davidson's suggestion can get rid of its cruder realist assumptions and be read as Kantian, it is bound to be a pessimistic linguistic Kantianism. Thus it is not suitable for a philosopher who, like Kant himself, regards systematic work in philosophy as mandatory; and it is certainly unacceptable by an adventurous linguistic Kantian like Dummett, whose fundamental demand is the ability to criticize our practices in light of a clear and systematic view. Now although this might have been a nice conclusion for the present section, it is slightly premature; for I find that examining one of Dummett's complaints against truth-conditional semantics may shed more light on the issue. Dummett disapproves on the basis that, in terms of a truth-conditional theory, it is impossible to explain "how, in general, we can derive from the meaning of a sentence our knowledge of what counts as showing it to be true" (LBM, p.308). This is true especially in regards to two classes of statements, roughly characterized as undecidable or containing "primitive" notions (basic vocabulary).

According to Dummett, the problem

with

primitive notions is that their meanings "can be thought of only as being

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conferred... by an immediate association, in the mind of the speaker, between the word and its referent" (LBM, p.312). This accusation of truth-conditional theories for necessitating private ostensive definition is mistaken, I think, since these theories are intrinsically "modest", i.e. they do not purport to associate word and world, but rather to provide only internal associations. Dummett is right, though, in his more general claim, that this "modesty" leads to the result that for a truth-conditional theory "there will be certain sentences the conditions for whose truth we cannot state informatively, but can state only in a circular manner" (ibid). The problem with undecidable statements is that we cannot possibly have any ability to recognize their truth-conditions as obtaining. What both of the cases show, then, is that a "truth-conditional meaning-theory involves ascribing to a speaker a piece of knowledge of which it is impossible to give an account. And this violates the principle that meaning is use, the requirement that a meaning-theory must say in what the knowledge which constitutes the understanding of an expression consists, in terms of the way in which it is manifested" (p.316). One strategy for combatting Dummett's accusation is admitting it to be correct, and denouncing the manifestation requirement itself. This is the strategy chosen by Rorty, who conceives of language as "the web of inferential relationships between our uses of vocables" and hence condemns the fallacy which "comes in thinking that the relationship between vocable and reality has to be piecemeal... a matter of discrete component capacities to get in touch with discrete chunks of reality" (1986, p.351). For this reason, Rorty urges us also to abandon the belief that "users of S are typically able to envisage acquaintance with sets of circumstances which would conclusively verify S" (p.352); "For holists, so to speak, truth is always

evidence-

transcendent. But that is to say that X's understanding of S is never manifested in the kind of recognitional abilities which Dummett envisages" (p.353). 1 " What we learn from Rorty is that for a holist, the manifestation requirement reveals a misconception of how our language functions. This way

111 As I have already claimed, Rorty's interpretation of Dummett's own ideas is extremely distorted. Interpreting Dummett's ideas as empiricist and representationalist, he ascribes to Dummett a belief in "entities called 'meanings'"; he is convinced that what bothers Dummett is the need to draw a contrast "between e.g. realism about tables and anti-realism about values" (p.353); etc. I shall henceforth discuss Rorty's own ideas, but ignore his misinterpretation altogether.

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Justificationism

of formulating the debate sounds to me convincing. Relinquishing the need for a systematic account, the manifestation requirement is indeed dispensable. However, a more intriguing answer to Dummett's complaint is the attempt to reconcile the manifestation requirement with a truth-conditional theory. Rorty undertakes it as well. He distinguishes between two different theories, or lines of explanation: "The lines of evidential force, so to speak, do not parallel the lines of referential direction... To know about the former lines is to know the language in which the beliefs are expressed. To know about the latter is to have an empirical theory about what the people who use that language mean by what they say - which is also the story about the causal roles played by their linguistic behavior in their interaction with their environment" (1986, p. 353). Thus a "pure" semantical theory, as it is understood by Rorty, does not appeal to experience, or "forms of life". It simply consists in the articulation of the inferential relationship between sentences (or beliefs, as Davidson would put it). A similar line is taken by McDowell, who equates "a sentence's truth-condition with the content it can be used to express" (1987, p.70), and emphasizes that "use" should be conceived in terms which are solely internal to the language, thus "the truthcondition of a sentence (its content) is audible or visible -to those who understand the language" (ibid). In this way, a truth-condition theory succeeds in meeting the demands of the manifestation requirement, but this manifestation is restricted "to those who understand the language". What we seem to get here is a conception of a theory of meaning which is, indeed, holistic and modest - but, surprisingly enough, justificationist! For what more is there to justificationism than "inferential relationships" and evidence? Admitting circularity and modesty, advocates of truth-conditional theory seem to feel more at ease with such terms as evidence, inferential relationships, and the like, than with the original notion of'truth-conditions'. This is hardly surprising. For although it is commonly assumed, with Davidson, that "truth is the semantic concept we understand best" (1990, p.300), this is plainly wrong. The notion of justification (or, for that matter, evidence, or inference) is much clearer and far more basic than that of truth. Dummett refers to this fact in his essay "the Source of the Concept of Truth": "Our mastery of the most primitive aspects of the use of language to transmit information does not require even an implicit grasp of the concept of truth" (SL, p.199). In LBM, Dummett suggests that "truth is not a single, univocal

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notion... but a cluster of different notions, adhering together by being governed by various closely related principles" (p. 157). If this analysis is on the right lines, as I believe it is, it shows that 'truth' is by no means "one of the clearest and most basic concepts we have" (Davidson 1990, p.314); it is, indeed, one of the vaguest. The immediate result of this "discovery" is that 'truth' cannot serve as an explanatory notion at all; and this - rather than the claim that the notion of 'truth' is an inexplicable primitive since it is so extremely clear - explains Davidson's reluctance to explicate it, as well as his increasing use of 'evidence'. 112 However, the requirement for truth-conditions does arise, it is argued, at the level of primitive terms. While we do associate meaning with evidence (or justification) at the higher linguistic levels, this association breaks at the lowest level. "The sentence 'my skin is warm' is true if and only if my skin is warm. Here there is no reference to a fact, a world, an experience, or a piece of evidence" (Davidson 1984, p. 194). To me it seems that the fact that truth-conditional theories are, au fond, justificationist, is seen even better in light of such an example. For what we really see is that the genuine controversy lies rather in the debate between modesty and full-bloodedness! Davidson needs such trivial T-sentences as the above, which is "barely true" in Dummett's terminology, because he is reluctant to appeal to extra-linguistic "forms of life" as explaining these meanings. Such T-sentences are agreed to be trivial; how is it possible, then, that they deliver some content, as truthconditions cum explanations of meaning are supposed to do? As for the rest of the language, all those who are engaged in a so-called truth-conditional meaning-theory adhere for their explanations to our use of the expressions, to the inferential relationships between them, to linguistic evidence, and sometimes - as does Putnam - profess against the distinction between truth-conditions and assertibility conditions. It seems, then, that the notion of truth-conditions is no more than a remnant of the conception

112 A quote from OC is pertinent: "It would be nonsense to say that we regard something as sure evidence because it is certainly true. Rather, we must first determine the role of deciding for or against a proposition. The reason why the use of the expression 'true or false' has something misleading about it is that it is like saying 'it tallies with the facts or it doesn't', and the very thing that is in question is what 'tallying' is here. Really 'the proposition is either true or false' only means that it must be possible to decide for or against it. But this does not say what the ground for such a decision is like." (# 197-200)

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attributed (rightly or wrongly) to the Tractatus; since we have surrendered, with the later Wittgenstein, any representational conception of language, replacing it in practice with a justificationist one, we are left with a title lacking any significance. I conclude, therefore, by expressing my impression that a truth-conditional theory of meaning is a myth. No one really takes seriously the idea of explaining meaning by means of truth-conditions specifications. Genuine explanations are either accomplished by specifications of assertion conditions, or conceived as objectionable or futile. Conclusion: In this chapter I have argued for a "thinner" formulation of the debate about the semantical formulation of linguistic Kantianism. I have shown that the common controversies collapse into two leading questions: Is it possible to represent conceptual elucidation by hierarchically structured justification connections, or are these connections inevitably circular? And is an appeal to non-linguistic facts, or "forms of life", conceivable

and

legitimate? The source of the difference in opinions is not located in dissimilarities

of attitude towards

empiricism,

representational ism

and

reification of meaning or language. Rather, these disputes seem to arise from former decisions concerning the legitimacy of the notion of analyticity, i.e. on the question of whether it is possible (or desirable), for the sake of philosophical elucidation, to avoid conflating grammatical justification with a scientific, empirical one? Decisions here are made, in their turn, either on the basis of a generally optimist and adventurous attitude, or on a pessimist and conservative one. In describing the dispute as resting on metaphilosophical grounds, I am in complete agreement with both Lear and Rorty. Lear ascribes Dummett's alleged difficulty to the fact that he "just can't stop. He asks for justification of practices that cannot be justified and then uses this lack of justification as grounds for the demand that these practices be revised... He has hit bedrock, but he keeps trying to dig" (1982, p.393 and 395). To my mind, one of the most fascinating aspects of Michael Dummett's perspective isthat he regards even the most entrenched habits and practices as open to questions of justification and to criticism and revision.

Anti-realism: The Semantical Details 4.5 Addendum:

105

Davidson

I have tried to show above that Davidson's proposal is surely not motivated by empiricist or realist concerns. We may now again confront the question of whether his proposal could be conceived as a different version of linguistic Kantianism. The issue is certainly a tricky one. While Dummett no doubt thinks that Davidson makes too many concessions to psychologism, Appiah condemns him as an anti-psychologist like Dummett. Strangely enough, I take both assessments to be just. On the one hand, Davidson's proposal is founded on the assumption that "a creature cannot have thoughts unless it is an interpreter of the speech of another" (1984, p. 157). Thought depends entirely on language, and hence cannot be elucidated save by a meaning theory. It is also clear that any form of adherence to mental representation is alien to Davidson's proposal: his holism does not square with the conception of direct representation, and his "modesty" ensures that no adherence will be made to any "inner" entity. Davidson has recently repudiated any interpretation of his views as mentalist, by saying: "Meaning is entirely determined by observable behaviour... Public availability is a constitutive aspect of language" (1990, p.314). He further made clear that his intentions in constructing a meaning theory were purely philosophical, and that any interpretation of his views as infected by scientism is misguided: "The approach to the problems of meaning, belief, and desire which I have outlined is not... meant to throw any direct light on how in real life we come to understand each other or how we master our first concepts and our first language. I have been engaged in a conceptual exercise..." (ibid, p.324). In short, it seems that Davidson shares with Dummett both his Kantian assumptions and the most salient features of the linguistic motivation. On the other hand, Davidson obviously repudiates the most fundamental principle upon which Frege's, Wittgenstein's and Dummett's anti-psychologism is based, viz. the criteria/symptoms distinction. This brings him to rejecting also the primacy of convention over intention, since rules or conventions "must be understood in terms of intentions and beliefs". And this conviction, in turn, seems to lead him to stressing the private dimension in a somewhat obscure manner: "For the purpose of the present enterprise, that of understanding truth and meaning, we should, I think, stick as closely as

Addendum: Davidson

106

possible to what is made directly available to an audience by a speaker, and this is the relevant state of the speaker's mind" (1990, p.311). All this ambiguity stems from the obvious fact that Davidson aims at some middle position. "Neither language nor thinking can be fully explained in terms of the other, and neither has conceptual priority" (1984, p.156). This quote does not only represent Davidson's view of the relation between language and thought; it is a paradigmatic example of the general strategy taken by him. Let me just mention two additional examples. The first concerns the total disengagement of semantics and epistemology. I have mentioned several times Davidson's urge for "pure" semantics, "uncontaminated" by epistemology. However, in his recent attack on convention-based theories of meaning, he expresses the following reservation: "This doctrine entails that a speaker may be perfectly intelligible to his hearers, may be interpreted exactly as he intends to be interpreted, and yet may not know what he means by what he says" (1990, p.310)." 3 What we learn from this quote is that Davidson (very reasonably) regards as untenable any semantical theory which divorces an account of meaning from an account of the speakers' actual knowledge. Now since the desired theory is supposed to be "uncontaminated" by a general theory of knowledge, i.e. by epistemology, it must be a theory of the knowledge the speaker has only of "what he means". What we seem to get is, hence, a distinction between semantical knowledge and other kinds of knowledge - factual, probably. But such a distinction is, of course, the one repudiated so vehemently by Davidson, again and again! My second example leads us to a similar blind alley. Earlier I quoted Davidson's avowal about the nature of his work: "I have been engaged in a conceptual exercise". Indeed, as we saw two paragraphs ago, Davidson conceives of himself as conducting a philosophical investigation, and not a scientific research clarifying "how in real life we come to understand each other or how we master our first concepts and our first language". Such a conception no doubt exhibits a favourable attitude towards the classic distinction between reason and cause; for how else can we assign a unique role to conceptual exercises, demarcating them from scientific ones?

113 N o convention-based

theory does indeed entail such a strange consequence,

since its

conception of knowledge is not of something "internal" and independent of the speakers' intentions and success in communicating them. But this is beside the present point.

Anti-realism: The Semantical Details

107

However, in his "Actions, Reasons and Causes", Davidson explicitly endorses an eradication of this distinction, by regarding reasons as causes: "rationalization is a species of causal explanation" (1982, p.3). I believe that the moral of all these examples is that Davidson's proposal is much less definite than it is normally taken to be. He tries both to divorce semantics from epistemology and to base his semantical account on a holistic conception of beliefs and knowledge (two notions that cannot but be captured within an epistemological theory); he favours "conceptual exercises", but at the same time denies the distinction between conceptual and factual (or analytic and synthetic). He sometimes seems to advance a rather appealing semantical version of Kantianism, but he also declares that the linguistic method is only "one way of pursuing metaphysics": "This is not, of course, the sole true method of metaphysics; there is no such" (1984, p. 199). I do not wish to suggest that Davidson's proposal is incoherent. Such a claim needs a serious consideration, which is undoubtedly beyond the scope of this book." 4 What I do wish to claim is that as it now stands, this proposal is too irresolute and equivocal to be considered as a proper candidate to represent, semantically, the general picture of linguistic Kantianism. We shall thus part ways with Davidson at this stage, and concentrate on Dummett's perspective, that of linguistic Kantianism.

114 1 do have an inkling that the fundamental sin must lie in relinquishing the criteria/symptoms distinction.

5 Anti-Psychologism Revisited This chapter concerns some issues in the philosophy of mind, a subject rarely discussed by Dummett. I intentionally include it in the main core of the book, rather than as part of the discussion of consequences, since it pertains to certain crucial details necessary to understand and justify his perspective. Linguistic Kantianism combines the basic Kantian ideas with an emphasis on the centrality of language, thus resolving certain epistemologica! pitfalls through linguistic solutions, in a way inspired by Frege and Wittgenstein. To both of these philosophers it was clear that an anti-empiricist, anti-representational philosophical attitude excludes psychological explanations in the guise of conceptual, grammatical elucidations. Logic - even in the wider sense of the term - should be kept separate from psychology. On the other hand, it is sometimes argued that, since psychology has gained a more objective scientific - character, adherence to psychological or neurological mechanisms is unavoidable, if we wish to attain a complete explanation of our concepts. It is thus clear that despite Dummett's relative silence on the matter, a thorough and sincere discussion of psychologism is inescapable in the present context. I shall try to clarify the following issues: * What form of anti-psychologism should be adopted by linguistic Kantianism? . * What consequences does this form bear on positions in the philosophy of mind, such as the 'cognitive sciences' approach? * What connection is there between this position and a certain conception of rationality? A first approximation of a characterization of the linguistic position is of course found in Frege's three principles, stated in his Foundations of Arithmetic, which I shall now quote in full. They are "always to separate sharply the psychological from the logical, the subjective from the objective; never to ask of the meaning of a word in isolation, but only in the context of a proposition; never to lose sight of the distinction between concept and object" (p.x). The Copernican revolution is already contained in these principles, since our judgements about concepts and objects are determined

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109

primarily by our language and cannot transcend it, and hence they cannot be independent of us. However, Kantian 'intuition', which is particular, is replaced with the context of a proposition - a general notion." 5

The

subjective epistemologica! basis is hence rejected in favour of a linguistic one. Since then, analytical philosophy has been generally conceived as constituted by Frege's principles, but as I argued earlier, only the anti-realist position has remained completely loyal to them." 6 It is our task now to examine the details and the consequences of such a linguistic approach, and some of the objections to it. Of the three principles, it is the first which seems to cause most of the disagreement among contemporary philosophers, especially if we restrict our scope to those who adopt the Kantian perspective. This claim may sound odd at first, since there seems to be overall agreement on anti-psychologism. The problem is that 'psychologism' may be understood and interpreted in several ways, hence there is a (somewhat latent) dispute among advocates of antipsychologism concerning the strength of its claims. Despite the consensus which requires that some distinction be made between the logical and the psychological enterprise, there is no agreement on where the barrier between the two should be placed, nor on the degree of its rigidity; thus questions about the nature of the laws of thought, their objectivity (or subjectivity), and their relations with the "structure of the human mind" remain in dispute. Gordon Baker and Peter Hacker regard contemporary analytical philosophy's principal sin in the adoption of a false dilemma which forces philosophers to choose between Platonism and psychologism. Most of those who oppose psychologism, they say, opt for some version of Platonism, or avoid the dilemma

altogether

by

interpreting

'psychologism'

as

connecting

semantics with understanding, and developing theories of meaning which divorce the two. However, according to Baker and Hacker, this step only hides these philosophers' more deeply- entrenched psychologism; since they consider understanding to be a mental process, they just leave its explanation to psychologists and neurologists. "The well-educated philosopher admits that understanding is a mental process, but instead of investigating this process

115 See, e.g., Frege 1950, # 12 and # 62. 116 But see my reservation concerning the position taken by Baker and Hacker, in the chapter Anti-Realism: the General Picture.

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Anti-Psychologism Revisited

itself, he tries to duplicate the process in the form of derivations within a formal calculus of semantic rules... and then elicits philosophical conclusions somehow from the scrutiny of these calculations" (1984, p. 161 ). As examples of sinners in this respect, the authors cite both Dummett and Davidson. It is, of course, true, that Dummett rejects Platonismi but does his Kantianism indeed lead him to the other horn of this false dilemma, without his being aware of it? I claim that it does not, and moreover, that Dummett's ideas concerning the relations between semantics and understanding, and his interpretation of anti-psychologism are quite similar to those endorsed by Baker and Hacker themselves. This should come as no surprise, since Dummett adopts - despite some divergence to be mentioned below -the gist of the later Wittgenstein's attitude concerning these issues. For Dummett "a theory of meaning is a theory of understanding; that is, what a theory of meaning has to give an account of is what it is that someone knows when someone knows a language, that is, when he knows the meanings of the expressions and sentences of the langauge" (SL, p.3). It is hence clear that his interpretation of anti-psychologism does not involve divorcing the two. However, what invoked Baker and Hacker's criticism was not merely that alleged "divorce", but rather what they took to be an exaggerated concession to psychology on the part of many modern philosophers. They refer us to Dummett's "What is a Theory of Meaning? II"," 7 where he declares that his proposed theory of meaning "is not intended as a psychological

hypothesis...;

it is not concerned

to describe any

psychological

mechanisms which may account for [someone's]

inner having

[linguistic] abilities" (p.37). To this we may add in the same vein, that Dummett embraces Frege's first principle, claiming that "the study of thought is to be sharply distinguished from the psychological process of thinking" (TOE, p.458). Hacker's claim is that the anti-psychologism which is supposed to be expressed in these paragraphs itself rests on psychologists assumptions. For Hacker, 'thinking' is not a mental process at all; it is, most simply, entertaining a thought. Therefore, after clarifying the grammar of these connected terms, nothing is left for psychology to invèstigate in relation to them. There is no "psychological process of thinking", hence no need to duplicate it and then pose a "sharp distinction" between its logical and

117 Reprinted in SL, pp.34-93.

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psychological counterparts. On the contrary, "the concepts of activity, act, process, object, when invoked in philosophical psychology, lead us astray" (Hacker 1990, p.312). Genuine anti-psychologism, we thus learn, does not leave the treatment of such notions as thinking, understanding and the like to psychology. Frege's principle is incoherent, since it circles back to psychologism: the "sharp distinction" is nothing but a new version of the old representational picture, abolished by the later Wittgenstein. The unavoidable result of all this is that "thinking is not 'having representations' in a symbolism of any kind" (ibid, p.330); hence no "inner psychological mechanisms", or theories about "processes", may explain our thoughts, thinking, meaning and understanding. By and large, Baker's and Hacker's analysis of the mental talk is very illuminating and convincing, but it cannot be taken as an acceptable criticism of Dummett in any way: Dummett's views on the relevant issues are formed under a strong Wittgensteinian influence, and Frege's influence here is almost secondary (except for the fact that it was he who initiated the whole discussion, and put it on the right track). Here, for example, is how Dummett criticizes both Frege and Husserl for their interpretation of anti-psychologism: "Where both failed was in demarcating logical notions too strictly from psychological ones. Together, they quite rightly attacked the psychologism of their day, from which no genuine progress could be expected; but, by setting up too rigid a barrier between the logical and the psychological, they deprived themselves of the means to explain what it is to grasp a thought. That is a notion that cannot be relegated to psychology, but is one of which any adequate philosophical account of thought owes its explanation" (FOP, p.287). Dummett thus criticizes Frege's mentalism - a remainder of empiricism and representationalism within Frege's thought - and, exactly like Hacker, and for equivalent reasons, he remarks that "what Frege set aside as psychological cannot so easily be dismissed from consideration" (FOP, p.278). This fairly recent attack on Frege's misconception is connected with Dummett's main criticism of Frege, since this fault is a direct result of a realist approach, rejecting an explanation of our grasp of sense as an ability: "a realist interpretation of sense has to link it, not with our procedures for deciding the truth-values of sentences, but with their determination as true or false by the way things objectively are, independently of our knowledge" (ibid). In other words, Frege's realist conception went hand in hand with a

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special attention to the idiolect, i.e. to the personal cognitive state. Thus Frege's insistence on the objectivity and communicability of sense is found incoherent with his realism; keeping the sharp distinction

between

the

subjective and the objective demands explaining our grasp of sense as an ability, and its content as open to public criteria. From this, however, it does not follow that psychologists have nothing to study, where thinking is concerned. What it does entail is, rather, that the sort of study that is of interest for psychologists in this domain has nothing to contribute to the sort of inquiry in which philosophers are engaged.

5.1 The cognitive

component

We have seen a Wittgensteinian aspect of Dummett's ideas concerning the "mental". However, Dummett is not in complete agreement with Wittgenstein, nor with his orthodox interpreters, Baker and Hacker. In what follows I shall examine the points of divergence between them: these can tell us a lot about Dummett's unique position. In his essay "Thought and Perception: The Views of Two Philosophical Innovators"," 8 Dummett introduces a distinction between a dispositional and an occurrent grasp of a sense or thought. Understanding, according to the Wittgensteinian approach just described, is explained solely in terms of dispositions, or abilities. The expression 'entertaining a thought' does not demand a further, non-dispositional analysis. In other words, there is no need to refer to an occurrent grasp, beyond the dispositional one, since a clear view is attained without one, and hence such and similar notions only lead us directly back to mentalist talk. Despite its plausibility, Dummett is not entirely satisfied with Wittgenstein's solution' for "Wittgenstein strove to dispel the idea that there is an occurrent sense of 'understand': but it is difficult to see how this can be successfully maintained" (FOP, p.275). It is now Dummett's turn to object to a false dilemma, according to which either we disregard the occurrent grasp altogether or we are driven into mentalism. According to Wittgenstein, "given that you understand the language... nothing need happen, in which your understanding of the sentence consists, no act of understanding,

118 FOP, pp.263-288.

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other than your hearing that sentence" (SL, p.99); but this account fails to explain such phenomena as that of understanding a sentence only after a while, on reflection. Dummett expresses a similar inconvenience with other notions, such as 'awareness' (LBM, p.97). Crispin Wright shares his feeling. He rightly observes that if we omit the Cartesian, representationalist, picture, and adopt an "orthodox Wittgensteinian" stance instead, we seem to lose the authority of the subject concerning first-person avowals; though Wittgenstein's criticism of the mentalist explanation is totally convincing, a purely dispositional account is insufficient for explaining this particular part of our concepts. "It is hard to see what justification there could be for this practice if what one ascribed, in self-ascribing a particular understanding of some expression, was a disposition.

How can I know without evidence that I have

a particular disposition or complex of dispositions, and why should I be credited with any kind of authority on the matter?" (1989a, p.394). This issue is central to the philosophical debate about representational ism, or realism; but Dummett was not sufficiently aware of this until fairly recently. We have already mentioned his dictum that it is only with "thought", and not with "the psychological process of thinking" that philosophy is engaged; but the following quotation from FPL represents more accurately his early conception of the matter: "We have a natural tendency to think of these various linguistic acts - making an assertion, expressing a thought - as the external expression of an interior act of adopting a particular mental attitude. This tendency is of course reinforced by the fact that to some of them interior acts or events do correspond - an act of judgement, or a thought's suddenly occurring to one... The analysis of these interior acts and events is a matter of epistemology, not of logic; but the linguistic acts should be classified as conventional actions, not as the external expression of interior states" (FPL, p.311). Such an attitude suffers from two contradictory faults, one Fregean and the other Wittgensteinian: like Frege, Dummett built here too high a barrier between "logic" and anything else (psychology, epistemology); and like Wittgenstein, his theory at that stage, which concentrated on the purely linguistic acts, was completely dispositional. The Fregean position does not consort with linguistic Kantianism:

A linguistic Kantian cannot leave room

for independent epistemologica! inquiry. Whether understanding, thinking, knowing, intending and other linguistic "acts" are necessarily connected with

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interior acts or events, or should be explained in some other way, is part of grammar, hence of the theory of meaning - of logic, widely understood. A theory of meaning is not complete, therefore, unless it gives a clear account both of the dispositional and the occurrent aspects of understanding. On this account as well, though, the description of contingent occurrences accompanying these "acts" is left to psychology and neurology. Here we come to the second fault, then. Dummett understood, following Wittgenstein, that "nothing is more wrong-headed than calling meaning a mental activity" (PI, #693), but wrongly concluded from this (again, with Wittgenstein) that the grammar of 'to understand' shows that there is no place for an occurrent sense. (Wittgenstein himself made it evident that such a claim contradicts the former, Fregean, one, since in the absence of an occurrent sense, nothing is left for psychology to investigate concerning these matters.) Understanding was thus linked only to conventional meaning, i.e. to its public aspect. On the face of it, this Wittgensteinian attitude does not stand in tension with linguistic Kantianism; it just leaves us unsatisfied, feeling that there is more to understanding than what is accounted for by a purely dispositional explanation. The truth of the matter is, however, that Wittgenstein's position turns out to go hand in hand with a pessimist attitude unacceptable to Dummett. Dummett discarded both faults at once in his more recent writings. We have seen above his criticism of Frege's fault; his criticism of Wittgenstein's fault is expressed in the cognitive component he has recently introduced into the theory of meaning. A description (however theoretical) of understanding, solely as dispositional, is a description of our knowledge of language only as a practical ability." 9 Such a description may ignore the speaker's intentions and purposes and refer only to public criteria and conventions, as I explained earlier. The resulting theory explains what practical abilities constitute the contents of specific linguistic expressions. According to linguistic Kantianism, a theory of meaning is a theory of understanding: our task in constructing it is attaining a clear view of what it is that a speaker of the language knows. Wittgensteinians claim that a description of the relevant practical abilities

119 Dummett indeed presented his theory of meaning in these terms, in his writings of the 1970's. See, e.g. "What is a Theory of Meaning? II", in SL, p.36; and compare with LBM. p. 102f.

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gives full account of the speaker's knowledge; but Dummett now holds that "our grasp of [the contents of the sentences of the language] could not exist... as a mastery of a purely external practice. By the very nature of language, we could not learn its use as a means of interacting with others without simultaneously learning to use it as a vehicle for our own thoughts. It is precisely because this interior use of language as a medium of our thinking, and of our representation of reality, is from an early stage integral to our whole conscious life that we travesty the facts if we call it a 'practical ability', even though it is never severed from, and remains responsible to, the use of language in conversing with others" (LBM, p. 103). Another way of putting the same idea is found in the preface to SL, where the sharp distinction between practical and theoretical knowledge is itself denounced: "I now think that a knowledge of a language has a substantial theoretical component; better expressed, that the classification of knowledge

into

theoretical and practical (knowledge-that and knowledge-how) is far too crude to allow knowledge of a language to be located within it. For one thing, a ground for taking seriously the attribution of knowledge to someone able to speak a language is that his linguistic utterances are (usually) rational acts, concerning which we may ask after the motives and intentions... [and these are] always based upon knowledge..." (SL, p.x) These remarks, and the addition of a cognitive component to understanding, do not amount, in any way, to deserting linguistic Kantianism, and replacing it with a mild form of mentalism. Knowledge is still described in terms of public criteria; it is not reduced to them, however. This insight itself has a definite Wittgensteinian tone, for it shows why knowledge cannot be expressed solely in a language "as from the outside", as McDowell rightly claimed. 120 McDowell, on the other hand, confuses two different senses of "outside" description: according to one sense, such a description consists of a direct appeal to "reality" as part of the explanation of meaning; the other sense of "outside description" refers to a mechanistic, behaviourist, reduction. McDowell then accuses Dummett of a mechanistic explanation of meaning, because of his description "as from the outside" in the first sense, viz. his Wittgensteinian appeal to forms of life, "real" colours and shapes. However, adherence to the real, "outside", world as part of a description of our

120 See the section on ' f u l l - b l o o d e d ' theories of meaning in the previous chapter.

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linguistic practices should not be confused with an explanation of understanding solely in "external" terms; while the first is unavoidable, the second misses the rational aspect of language. "It is because the utterance has a content... that it is a manifestation of rationality; but we should not see the content as conferred by the thought, conceived as lying, in the mind, behind the outward act of utterance; nor should we see it as given from the outside, by the observable practice of which the utterance is part; we should see it in the utterance" (RE, p.256).121 Nothing could be more natural for Dummett than this new line of thought, for it is in this way that the emptiness of logic, and with it that of philosophical analyses, is avoided, and thus the talk of philosophical knowledge and truth gain legitimacy. This result isìience crucial for an optimist philosopher espousing linguistic Kantianism. Dummett, no doubt, walks here on thin ice. On the one hand, he has to remain loyal to anti-psychologism, in its new sense, and show he is not taking a first step on the slippery slope towards mentalism and representationalism; on the other hand, he is now required to give a satisfactory account of knowledge, awareness and understanding, which surpasses Wittgenstein's dispositional one. It is hence a pity that we have not yet been provided with a clear suggestion regarding these terms: Dummett's ideas are still not sufficiently elaborated even to be considered as programmatic. We thus may seek assistance from other philosophers. K-0 Apel, in his recent article "Is Intentionality more Basic than Linguistic Meaning?", discusses the same topic in focus here. Apel answers his title question in the negative, "and endorses what he calls the 'linguistic turn' and the 'pragmatic turn' in philosophy, represented respectively by the philosophies of Wittgenstein and Peirce. A successful and interesting unity of both is found, according to Apel, in Searle's writings from the 1960's, mainly in his Speech Acts. The turn taken afterwards by analytical philosophers (in the commonly used sense of the term) has been towards greater emphasis on the primacy of intentionality, and has culminated in Searle's uncoupling of the intention to

121 In fact, McDowell acknowledges Dummett's suggestion of implicit knowledge as preventing such an "outside" description, but he insists that it is either circular or lapses back into behaviourism, because of the manifestation requirement. And indeed, the idea of implicit knowledge is criticized and abandoned by Dummett in the preface to SL (p.xi) while the cognitive component of our knowledge of language is maintained.

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represent and the intention to communicate, in his book Intentionality.

Apel

rejects the views of "Searle II" in favour of those of "Searle I", adopting a linguistic Kantian attitude. His own formulation of linguistic Kantianism is a paraphrase of Kant's words: "The conditions of possibility of the description of experienceable facts - prepositional sentences as representations of facts are at the same time the conditions of possibility of the describable facts" (1991, p.35). This stance leads Apel to the view that the meanings of signs fixed by linguistic convention are methodologically prior to intentionality. However, there is a problem with the crude Wittgensteinian position, since it ignores the epistemological role of "the evidence of consciousness"; and this is a fault of the linguistic position: "the prepositional representation of the world of experience can in fact be transcended in respect of the

perceptual

identification of phenomenal evidence, and in this respect, it is not language which is the essential (nichthintergehbar) a priori of experience, but the consciousness

of the perceptual

evidence" (p.37). This claim is nothing but

a different formulation of Dummett's and Wright's misgivings concerning the Wittgensteinian neglect of the occurrent sense of understanding and of the authority of first person avowals. Apel's solution to the problem is based on supplementing the 'linguistic turn' with Peirce's 'pragmatic turn': "the two-term basis of logical semantics, which is oriented towards abstract propositions, must be extended in the direction of the three-term

basis of the pragmatically integrated semiotics of

Charles Peirce" (p.38). What needs emphasizing at this stage is that the primacy of conventions is not to be impaired by this supplementary element; too much stress on the pragmatical point may lead us to the Searle II position, according to which "speakers' meaning should be entirely definable in terms of more primitive forms of Intentionality" (Searle 1983, p. 160). This position is contested by Apel, with the aid of Searle I. Intentions are pre-determined by conventions, he claims. The contribution of the pragmatic element relates to that part of the theory of meaning which deals with the speakers' knowledge and responsibility for their utterances, "for I must first have a conviction before I can -legitimately - assert something" (p. 41), but the intentional content of this conviction depends, eventually, on the conventional grammar. In short, what we learn from Apel is that the problem of personal understanding might be solved if we designated a more important role to pragma-

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tics than is commonly acknowledged.122 It is interesting to note that Dummett himself has got fairly close to a similar idea recently: "The fact that the use of language is a conscious rational activity - we might say the rational activity - of intelligent agents must be incorporated into any [description of what it is that we learn when we learn to speak], because it is integral to the phenomenon of the use of human language" (LBM, p.91). Thus the cognitive component now added to the description of practical abilities aims at emphasizing precisely this rational aspect, part of which is the pragmatic aspect of our knowledge of language: the part which analyses the point of the utterances, their motives, the intentions of the speakers. This part naturally concentrates on the speaker's idiolect, but this should not deceive us into thinking that any priority is given to idiolects over the common language. Like Apel, Dummett reminds us that the pragmatic aspect is dependent upon a prior level of conventional meaning: "we can estimate someone's purpose, motive, or intention only against the background of what we presume him to know. We can ask after [the point of an utterance] only when we know its meaning" (LBM, pp. 92,91). Thus a first approximation to the content of the desired cognitive component may be that which results from adding a pragmatical analysis to the semantical one. Note that this in no way breaches any Wittgensteinian principle. On the contrary, we even find hints in PI, pointing in a similar direction. In #182 Wittgenstein suggests a few exercises in order to manifest the connection between the grammar of "to fit", "to be able" and "to understand". What we are bound to see is that understanding is similar to an

122 Apel's own development of the semantical details of the desired theory does not seem to me to fit the general picture he is endorsing. He adopts Tarski's T-sentences as best expressing linguistic Kantianism, confusing the primacy of language with modesty (p.36); he further confuses verificationism with truth-conditional semantics (p.43, and see Searle's correction of this mistake in p.96 of the same volume); and this confusion leads to an obscure presentation of his suggestion about "validity conditions". Nonetheless, I find his general treatment of the philosophical picture stimulating. Apel certainly turns out to be an analytical philosopher par excellence, according to my own conception of the term. Thus it seems that the integration of analytical and continental thoughts, sought by many contemporary philosophers (e.g. Bernstein, Rosen and Mitchell) should not necessarily end up in Gadamerian relativism. Rather, it may well be built on the ideas common to Dummett and Apel. A similar point is made by Putnam, who refers us also to Apel's and Habermas's ideas, but criticizes them on the basis of his current more relativist tendencies. (See Putnam 1987, p.55) These ideas, however, may be naturally complemented by those of Dummett, who shares with both Apel and Habermas the optimist presupposition.

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ability, since both can be explained by a dispositional analysis, as the beginning of this chapter suggests. However, we can also see that both ability and understanding have an occurrent sense: "Someone asks me: 'Can you lift this weight?' I answer 'Yes'. Now he says 'do it!'- and I can't. In what kind of circumstances would it count as a justification to say 'When I answered "yes" I could do it, only now I can't'?" (ibid). It should be emphasized, with Wittgenstein, that the cognitive component itself is analyzed in terms of justification; it is just the scope of the circumstances which is broadened to include context, intention and other "pragmatic" notions: "The criteria which we accept for 'fitting', 'being able to', 'understanding', are much more complicated than might appear at first sight. That is, the game with these words, their employment in the linguistic intercourse that is carried on by their means, is more involved - the role these words in our language other than we are tempted to think", (ibid) Couldn't this be counted as a hint, enunciating the idea that a cognitive, pragmatic component is essential to our account of 'understanding'?

5.2 Rationality and responsibility I mentioned earlier that Wright is bothered by a problem similar to the one disturbing Dummett and Apel, concerning the absence of an occurrent sense from Wittgenstein's account of understanding. I have not yet described Wright's own solution to the problem, and it is time to do so. Wright discusses various kinds of first-person avowals, and distinguishes between, e.g., the grasping of a meaning of an expression 'in a flash' and the selfascription of meaning and intention. While the first may be explained by certain phenomenological episodes, the second may not. In such cases introspection is in no way explanatory: we do not learn of our intentions by looking "inside" and identifying a familiar phenomenon. But if introspection (that is, any form of representationalist explanation) is excluded, what justifies the authority which we ascribe to speakers concerning their first person avowals? Wright's answer is as follows: "The authority which our selfascriptions of meaning, intention, and decision assume is not based on any kind of cognitive advantage, expertise or achievement. Rather it is, as it were, a concession, unofficially granted to anyone whom one takes seriously as a

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rational subject. It is, so to speak, such a subject's right to declare what he intends, what he intended, and what satisfies his intentions; and his possession of this right consists in the conferral upon such declarations, other things being equal, of a constitutive rather than descriptive role" (1989a, p.401). In other words, it is part of our grammar (widely understood), of our linguistic conventions, that we acknowledge the superiority of the speaker concerning his own intentions. Wright rejects any adherence to cognitive privilege on the part of the speaker. Does this rejection contradict, then, a cognitive component in our account of 'understanding', like the one offered in the previous section? I think it does not. For the latter is not added as a representational factor something to be introspected; there is not even a slight adherence to an "inner" information, written in a "mental" language. Hence Wright should not object to linking the subject's right to testify to his intentions and beliefs with 'knowledge' (emphasizing that it is not privileged knowledge). In this way, Dummett's urge to account for a cognitive component in our theory of understanding may be interpreted in terms of both Apel's and Wright's suggestions. Apel's stress on the pragmatic aspect of our use of language can be combined with Wright's treatment of self-ascription of intentions. Both come to serve the same purpose: improving on the purely dispositional description of language without collapsing into mentalism. A theory which is based only on dispositional terms and which describes our ability to use language only as a practical ability may be given only in terms which are "from the outside"; it lacks the rational component, which is so crucial in describing language. The missing part sheds light on certain facets of justification hitherto ignored. Wright's contribution to the emerging description may be seen as a "principle of responsibility", acknowledging the speaker's constitutive authority concerning certain linguistic acts. It is parallel to the Davidsonian "principle of charity"; like the latter, it is a constitutive and not a descriptive rule, which comes not as an answer to scepticism but as an indispensable methodological principle.123 But whereas the "principle of charity" has to do with true beliefs, the "principle of responsibility" is about the personal commitment each member in a linguistic community takes. A speaker "both

123 See Ramberg 1989, p.69.

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holds himself responsible to the common meanings of his words and exploits the existence of those common meanings" (LBM, p. 105). It is easy to link this principle with the content of the previous chapter: a justificationist, convention-based, theory of meaning adheres, implicitly, to such a responsibility principle. Dummett rightfully follows Wittgenstein in asserting that "communication is in no danger of breaking down, and... our assurance [of that] does not rest on anything" (LBM, p.311). This is, indeed, the "bedrock" answer to any sceptic concerning the issue of rule following; "we learned the principle of... application just from being shown a finite number of cases, and then 'we knew how to go on'" (p.312). There may be no farther answer beyond the grammatical one. However, this is all true in a society of responsible language users. Our criteria are determined solely by the ongoing practice, hence only responsible (indeed, rational) applications of our rules assure successful communication; but the assumption that most language users are responsible is not open to scepticism, since it is a constitutive presumption concerning language users: "Where there is no reason to assume the contrary, we all take our discourse partners to be rational agents".124 Wright's proposal thus forms a part of a wider picture; and in this wider picture there is no room for his own appeal to the sub-rational, as part of our philosophical explanation of the issue of rule-following125 The analysis we have worked out seems to have established the primacy of language over "thought", "mind" etc.; despite the fact that a purely dispositional account has to be supplemented with other factors in the theory of meaning, we are not necessarily led to mentalism. Linguistic Kantianism is possible and plausible. But we may be facing a new problem now. For the emphasis on the primacy of "syntax" seems to entail a certain version of relativism: isn't all we say about language confined to particular languages, since we do not adhere to biological, or sub-rational, causes as part of our understanding of language? The problem may even be intensified, in light of the strong connection between language and rationality. Our use of language

124 Kasher 1987, p.286. Note that by construing Wright's principle in that way, we succeed in avoiding what otherwise could lead us into an impasse, viz. the cases of" those who deceive us concerning their own intentions. Such cases are now conceivable since while the priority of the speakers' avowals is not contested, we may still maintain that what they say is false: a constitutive presumption allows for exceptions. 125 Wright's "sub-rational" is discussed in the second section of the previous chapter.

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may be taken as the rational activity par excellence; in fact we cannot conceive of a rational creature being essentially speechless. Rationality involves motives, purposes and intentions, and although we do ascribe some primitive intentions to animals, or babies, we do not treat anybody as rational unless he has mastered a language, in which he can form and express more articulated intentions. Now our problem is whether we are not opting for some kind of relativistic-minded views about rationality, when we claim that rationality is founded on language alone, without a more fundamental adherence to a shared biological or psychological human structure. There are many languages; are there accordingly many rationalities? A well-known response to this problem is provided by Davidson. His claim is that "in giving up dependence on the concept of an uninterpreted reality... we do not relinquish the notion of objective truth - quite the contrary... Of course truth of sentences remains relative to language, but that is as objective as can be" (1984, p. 198). Davidson's solution, though, cannot be shared by Dummett as it is, since it is draws from assumptions quite alien to Dummett's thought - primarily on giving up the analytic/synthetic distinction (p. 187), regarding interpretation as the most basic linguistic action (p. 196) and adhering to a "modest" formulation of the meaning theory (p. 194). However, Dummett's linguistic Kantianism may lead him to a similar conclusion, through different arguments. Indeed, there is nothing in Dummett's thought that would guarantee that every language be translatable into another, as in Davidson's; but Dummett should agree with Davidson that "only a creature with a language can properly be said to have a full-fledged scheme of propositional attitudes" (p.xviii). In other words, that he who speaks is rational, and that the grammar of 'rationality' dictates some "thin layer" shared by every rational/language-using creature. Having a language implies following rules. It is the task of the philosopher to show how rules and hence language - are possible at all; and what makes these possible is inherent to any language whatsoever, and does not depend on any specific feature of some particular language. The same is true for rationality: our grammatical analysis may show us what essential features any version of rationality must have. This is of course a hard and confusing enterprise, but it should not be impossible. When Dummett talks about our quest for truth, it is this sort of truth he is looking for. Being a language-user thus replaces Kant's notion of 'rational being' - and the task of showing how this is

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possible is, similarly, not concerned with the biological features "necessary" for communication and rule-following, but with conceptual analysis. By interpreting Dummett's urge to include a cognitive component in the theory of meaning according to Wright's proposal concerning first-person avowals, we have established a firm connection between the notions of having a language, being rational and behaving responsibly. Doing that in a linguistic Kantian manner, we could not anchor these notions in a pre-linguistic stratum. Rather, we turn to an elaborate notion of justification, as forming the basis of our meaning theory, yielding explanations of meanings and of the cognitive component. This notion comprises part of a thin layer, lying at the basis of every conceptual analysis of rationality. It enables us to avoid a relativistic conclusion, which could have otherwise been drawn from the primacy of language.

5.3 Cognitive Sciences I wish to turn now to an examination of the linguistic Kantianism's attitude towards particular positions in the philosophy of mind. The first position has already been addressed: we have mentioned that Dummett made it very clear that regarding the content of our linguistic understanding as 'open to view' had nothing to do with crude behaviourism. Although Dummett leans on the addition of a cognitive component in order to refute those accusing him of behaviourism, I think that even a disposition-based description like the one offered by Wittgenstein cannot be justly conceived as behaviouristic.126 At any rate, it seems that behaviourism has recently cleared the stage, and left it to advocates of the 'cognitive sciences' approach to philosophy. Dummett bluntly opposes these new "invaders" of philosophy, on the basis of his anti-psychologism. (FOP, p.288) Let us now see how our reading of

126 And see Hacker 1990, p.238ff. Dummett quotes extensively from Wittgenstein's PI in order to suggest that Wittgenstein favours a description of language users in a 'natural' terminology, and not in terms of rule-obeying, purposive behaviour. It is therefore important to emphasize that Wittgenstein, like Dummett, is far from embracing behaviourism, and the language he uses in his elucidations is quite purposive and intentionalist. This may show, moreover, that it is possible to reconcile between Wittgenstein's position and the blurring of the distinction between practical and theoretical knowledge. For an updated criticism of behaviourism from a Wittgensteinian point of view see also Dilman 1988.

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anti-psychologism tallies with Dummett's criticism of this particular form of "invasion", which is, after all, not identical to traditional psychologist attitudes. Dummett's attack on the 'cognitive sciences' approach is directed mainly towards Chomsky's theories. In order to understand this attack, let us begin with Wittgenstein's analysis of Augustine's conception of language: "Augustine describes the learning of human language as if the child came into a strange country and did not understand the language of the country; that is, as if it already had a language, only not this one. Or again: as if the child could already think, only not yet speak..." (PI, #32). It is illuminating to compare this quotation from PI with the following words of two of the leading cognitivists: "Relevant experience is never presented for most speakers of English... Somehow, this is information that children themselves bring to the process of language acquisition, as part of their mode of cognition" (Chomsky 1980, p.44); "The only psychological models of cognitive processes that seem even remotely plausible represent such processes as computational. Computation presupposes a medium of computation: a representational system. We are thus provisionally committed to attributing a representational system to organisms" (Fodor 1975, p.27). Dummett regards the hypothesis underlying Chomsky's and Fodor's attitude as representational, hence as part of the old empiricist faulty picture. "The illusion is threefold: in thinking, first, that this representative power can be isolated from all the other features of language; secondly, that those other features can be explained in terms of it, or left to take care of themselves without explanation; and, thirdly, that the representative power consists in the speaker's being in the correct interior states" (SL, p. 187). It is the third which is the most problematic for the cognitivists, since while the first two faults may, perhaps, be corrected within a wider cognitivist account of the linguistic practice, the third is an immanent· fault. The objection to representationalism can be understood only against the background of a familiar metaphilosophical consideration. "There are sciences which investigate mind; but they have certain peculiarities distinguishing them from the 'natural sciences'. Their principle is that whereas from a natural science a man often learns something utterly new to him, the sciences of mind teach him only things of which he was already conscious... The sciences of mind, unless they preach error or confuse the issue by dishonest or

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involuntary obscurity, can tell us nothing but what each can verify for himself by reflecting upon his own mind" (Collingwood, 1942, ## 1.7, 1.71, 1.85).127 Dummett writes against Chomsky that "we should not be wrong to infer, from someone's inability to say what he knows, that his knowledge is not conscious" (OCh); but this is only a secondary problem, which comes to show that Chomsky's suggestion is not the only explanation possible. Cognitivism's fundamental fault does not lie in its unsatisfactory hypotheses. The main problem is its neglect of the essential break between philosophy and the 'natural sciences', and with it its representational character. As was clear to Frege, Wittgenstein and Collingwood, no philosophical achievement can be made with the aid of discoveries "utterly new" to us; no scientific hypothesis, or theory, can solve genuine philosophical problems. Frege's antipsychologism has to be read as a general anti-scientism, for it makes no difference who the "invaders" are; what matters is that their proposals do not belong to the philosophical realm. They offer "discoveries" where conceptual links are sought.128 Thus when Dummett complains about the psychological character of Chomsky's theories, he is not bothered by what might sound like Chomsky's

'mentalism'.

Chomsky's

response

to such

allegations

of

'mentalism' is that he is innocent, since he aims, eventually, to describe "the properties of certain physical mechanisms" (1980, p.5). However, mentalist or not, he is still an "invader" in Dummett's eyes; from the perspective of linguistic Kantianism, anti-psychologism entails denying scientists of any kind the right to propose elucidations of such notions as 'understanding' and 'rulefollowing'. This matter is crucial to the crux of Dummett's thought: it is a necessary condition for its revisionist character. This is easily manifested, if we reflect upon the way Dummett reaches his proposal concerning the rejection of bivalence: his considerations there are purely conceptual. No result whose origin is the physicist or the psychologist's laboratory may affect it.129 The same goes for any other part of Dummett's thought; for example, no experiment concerning the temporal order of our cognitive/mental/neurologi-

127 I take Collingwood to refer here to what is usually labelled 'philosophy of mind', including, perhaps, certain parts of psychology - those criticized by Wittgenstein as well. 128 This point is recapitulated in the Epilogue. 129 See his essay "Is Logic Empirical?" in TOE.

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cal "process" of "understanding" proves that the context principle is either right or wrong: these considerations are alien to philosophy. The only ways to contend that principle would be by showing it to be incoherent, or by supplying us with a genuine alternative for our meaning theory. Both these ways belong to the conceptual level. This approach is precisely what enrages Chomsky. Alluding to Dummett's own appeal to "implicit knowledge", Chomsky wonders "what is the distinction between a theory held to be true of the speaker's capacities and implicit knowledge, on the one hand, and a 'psychological hypothesis' on the other" (1980, p.l 10). Dummett, indeed, has since expressed his dissatisfaction with his own "unexplanatory" notion of implicit knowledge attributed to speakers.130 But for Chomsky this would only be a matter of terminological change, since in his eyes, "Dummett's theory of meaning is a 'psychological hypothesis', though one that abstracts away from many questions that can be raised about inner mechanisms" (1980, p.l 11). According to such an interpretation of Dummett's proposal, what we have here is only an arbitrary limit of relevant evidence: "Apparently, Dummett believes that a certain limited domain of factual evidence suffices for his purposes in constructing a theory of implicit knowledge and human capacities, though he does not indicate what these limits are or why evidence that falls beyond them is necessarily irrelevant to his purposes" (ibid). Thus locating the dispute between him and Dummett, he continues by interpreting Dummett's attack on his theory as aiming mainly to show that it lacks the relevant evidence, and accordingly his rejoinder is: "true, we always want more evidence..., but there is no defect of principle in the kinds of evidence we have, no defect that other kinds of evidence would remedy" (1986, p.258). Chomsky maintains that "the choice between these alternatives cannot be settled by a priori argument, but only by trying to refine each of them to the point where we can ask how they fare as theories that explain some significant range of facts" (1980, p.48). What Chomsky fails to see is that we do need an a priori argument in order to decide which those significant facts are, and how wide their range is. It is precisely their character which is

130 SL, p.xi. However, this notion was still very different from Chomsky's. Compare LBM, p.95f. with Chomsky 1975, pp.162-6, where he makes room for principles and rules "that are forever hidden from consciousness" (p. 165). See also his 1980, pp. 128-134.

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disputed, and this dispute cannot but be treated a priori.131 Having clarified this, by drawing a line between grammatical and scientific evidence, hence by abolishing any unconscious, "forever hidden" evidence, we see at once the reason that Dummett's programme does not amount to a 'psychological hypothesis': it does not strive to be one! As the dispute goes metaphilosophical, Chomsky is right in objecting to the Wittgensteinian argument against mental representations as it is brought by Lear, without an additional clarification of its presuppositions. He asks: "[D]oes the argument establish anything at all? Not until something is added to explain why positing interior mental objects gets in the way of explanation and papers over gaps in our acquisition of language-mastery, and furthermore why this must be the case" (1980, p. 13). The justification of this view concerns the uniqueness of philosophy, and it is wholly legitimate to ask for it before discussing its consequences on particular philosophical positions. What is, then, Dummett's justification of this view? The first answer that springs to mind is that a decision about the nature of philosophy is a "bedrock" decision: no argument can be put forward here, since the position is "barely true". It is, in other words, a grammatical fact that philosophy is such a sector in the quest for truth, in which we "proceed solely by means of ratiocination" (TOE, p.456). This basic belief is the common thread of Frege's, Wittgenstein's, Dummett's and also Lear's conceptions of philosophy. However, I think that Dummett would not be content with this answer as it is. By establishing a connection between his metaphilosophical decision and his conception of the normativity of rationality he may achieve a sort of (circular) justification of both. For it is only if we abstract philosophy of any scientific fact, that we may attain a clear account of rationality, if the latter

131 J.J. Katz deals extensively with the tension between the Chomskyan and the Wittgensteinian views in general, and with the present debate in particular. Although I disagree with the details of his solution (a revival of Platonism), I think that the gist of his anti-naturalist arguments is correct, and applicable to Dummett's case. See his 1990 passim, but esp. pp. 50-52 and 317-320. Katz rightfully blames Chomsky of adopting an approach "as empiricist as Quine's": "As with Quine, philosophical questions for Chomsky... arise and are allegedly solved in the exclusively empirical context of a posteriori investigations. But if... philosophical questions are a priori questions, then... a Chomskyan approach is not only incorrect about their origin but ineffective for their solution." (p.318)

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is not to be explained in, or linked to, causal terms. That this is the case is indeed a grammatical fact, but it is this fact that is the heart of the matter. I mentioned earlier that Wright tries to bridge his anti-realism with the cognitive sciences approach by leaving his logical account of meaning and understanding slightly open. Wright allows for the possibility that cognitive scientists provide us with answers to grammatical questions, or better - help us determine whether certain questions are grammatical or not. He wishes to know "whether the order-of-determination test can be refined and developed sufficiently to allow a clear-cut application to judgments of content..; and whether the then emergent notion of best opinion will contain components whose proper description will require - or, less, allow - invoking the apparatus of theoretical linguistics" (1989b, p.258f.). Wright is right in maintaining that "we are a long way from knowing what it is correct to think about either question". However, if the result of his inquiry were that adherence to unconscious psychological mechanisms was inevitable, that would amount to showing his anti-realism to be incoherent. For as shown above, radical antipsychologism is not a matter of choice for the anti-realist: it is one of his main constitutive tenets. It is unclear whether Wright is aware of this point. Another supporter of anti-realism, Neil Tennant, shows even less awareness of this constitutive tenet. In his discussion of the manifestation principle, Tennant suggests merging the theory of meaning with evolutionary considerations. "Our linguistic exchanges have a function. This could be disclosed by looking beyond the purposive behaviour of contemporary users and enquiring after the evolutionary purpose that that function served in increasing the inclusive genetic fitness of language-using creatures" (1987, p. 16). Thus while a genuine Kantian account of rationality deals with the agents' conscious purposes and motives, linking them with their responsibility towards their community, Tennant blurs the crucial distinction between such a purposive account and a biological-teleological one. He continues at the same vein by supporting Chomsky's point: "There is no a priori insistence that when considering how someone is equipped with a mastery of his language, one limit oneself only to the causally efficacious stimuli that he experiences during his own sentient lifetime. Why not admit as antirealistically acceptable also the bequeathed sum of such saliencies in the history of his forebears? If we do so, we cannot rule out the prospect of an anti-realistic semantics blending with a cognitivist theory of mind" (p. 17).

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The manifestation principle does not stand alone in the void, though. It is part and parcel of a cluster of ideas. The fact that it limits the so-called "evidence" to what is open to view is indispensable. This should be clear in light of the principle of responsibility and the primacy of conventions in our account of meaning and understanding. "One cannot guess how a word functions. One has to look at its use and learn from that" (PI, #340). When meanings are concerned, even the best scientific theories amount to a "guess", since the relevant evidence should not exceed what is open to view - what we can look at. Tennant further believes that anti-realism may go hand in hand with functionalism, which is the family name of several popular approaches to issues in the philosophy of mind. Common to all is the attribution of computational properties to the brain, as a solution to the mind/body problem in an allegedly 'non-mysterious' manner. Tennant thinks that this approach may attract anti-realists; Appiah, on the other hand, bases one of his attacks on anti-realism precisely on this assumption, for functionalism does not allow any adherence to suspicious mental, or internal, states, without there being any correlation between them and some outward factors. I believe Appiah is right in estimating that "many philosophers of mind nowadays think that mental states are functional states" (1986, p. 149), but it is noteworthy that the originator of this position, Putnam, now finds it to be less attractive, on the basis of anti-realist considerations. Putnam rightfully locates the problem in the idea of 'correlation', which is central to functionalism: "correlation is problematical, not in the sense that there is evidence of non-correlation,

but

in the epistemologica! sense that //there is a correlation, one can never know which it is" (1981, p.81 f.). This is, of course, a verificationist argument; but as Appiah notes, an anti-realist argument against functionalism lies eventually on anti-psychologist grounds. In the epilogue of For Truth in

Semantics,

Appiah acknowledges anti-psychologism as "one of the founding gestures of the philosophy of language" (1986, p. 162) and as culminating in anti-realism. Thus locating the basic disagreement, Appiah adopts representationalist views such as Fodor's, endorsing "bringing philosophical problems about the mind rather than about language to the focus of attention" (p. 163). This is a very clear and concise formulation of the crux of the debate, showing why functionalism, as well as cognitive scientist approaches to the philosophy of mind, are immanently realist and empiricist, and why, on the other hand, it

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is crucial for linguistic Kantians to insist on the primacy of theories of meaning, and of course on the distinction between philosophy and the natural sciences. At the beginning of my discussion of anti-realism, I claimed that linguistic Kantianism is the only candidate for the title of 'analytical philosophy' today. This claim is reinforced in the present discussion. Analytical philosophy, as initiated by Frege and Wittgenstein, rests heavily on the criteria/symptoms distinction, whose acceptance amounts precisely to anti-psychologism. This latter notion was a little unclear at first, when framed by Frege; it was Wittgenstein who later helped to clarify it, turning it more appropriately into anti-scientism

in general. Many contemporary philosophers do not ack-

nowledge this principle any more; this is true even of certain adherents to anti-realism like Tennant, and perhaps even Wright. On the other hand, the arguments raised by Baker and Hacker against cognitivism resemble the gist of Dummett's complaints against Chomsky, echoing both Frege's and Wittgenstein's conception: "If one has thought through an argument, then the expression

of what one thought will be an ordered sequence of thoughts or

propositions. In so far as there is anything that can be called 'the structure of thought (or of thinking)' it is the structure of the expression of the argument which is thought through. But one must not conflate the logical stages of an argument with a psychological process or activity..." (Hacker 1990, p.305). Baker and Hacker, furthermore, are not prepared to make any concession to the cognitive sciences. In this respect, I believe, Dummett differs from them as well, for he seems to leave room for researches of the

contingent

accompaniments of thinking, once it is made clear that they have nothing to do with philosophy.132 Thus he suggests that the only escape for Chomsky's proposal "is to treat the supposedly internalised theory of meaning, not as constitutive of the speaker's attaching the meanings that he does to his words, but, indeed, as an empirical hypothesis to explain what enables him to use the language to express those meanings. It then becomes irrelevant to the philosophical task..." (SL, p. 181). "What matters about knowledge, for philosophy, is not how it is stored but in what form it is delivered. Hence, however psychology may evaluate it, Chomsky's characterization of mastery

132 Perhaps W r i g h t ' s view is meant to be read according to similar lines.

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of a language as unconscious knowledge contributes nothing to philosophical understanding" (SL, p.xi). Seen as natural scientists, the cognitivists do have interesting contributions to make, concerning our linguistic capabilities. First, as I argued in the previous chapter, the role of explaining the empirical preconditions for our acquisition

of our mother tongue belongs mainly to them. A theory of

meaning has to supply us with a clear account of what our knowledge of language essentially consists of, rather than give us scientific explanations of the actual way in which this knowledge is acquired. The latter certainly involves inner mechanisms, of which language learners cannot be conscious. Hence as an anti-psychologist, who wishes to keep away from any area which must be "contaminated" by science, the meaning theorist would do better to avoid this area altogether; otherwise his theory would involve conflating logical and psychological explanations. 1 " Secondly, having acquired our language, it is certain that at least some of our linguistic practices involve inner mechanisms. Let us take, for example, "our capacity to store and retrieve information in linguistic form, to act upon the information so retrieved, and to operate with language in the course of inner reflections" (LBM, p. 106). A theory of meaning has to explain how all these "depend... upon our ability to engage in linguistic interchange" (ibid); but "how the storage is effected is of no concern to philosophy: what matters to it is how each item is presented when summoned for use" (p.97). A scientist who tries to explain - in scientific terms - our linguistic competence has to undertake the project of explaining, among other things, how this information is stored.'34 I started exploring these issues by examining the points of divergence between Dummett and the orthodox Wittgensteinians. We saw that these consist mainly of Dummett's dissatisfaction with an account of our knowledge of language which describes it only in a dispositional manner. The "occurrent sense", the renunciation of the distinction between practical and theoretical

133 And see, again, Lear 1982, p.394. 134 Hacker thinks that even saying this much amounts to a conceptual confusion: "it makes no more sense to talk of storing information in the brain than it does to talk of having dictionaries or filling cards in the brain..." (1987, p.493). Discarding the metaphorical language used above, I do not see why there may not be room for a scientific enquiry into the biological conditions of knowledge in general, and linguistic ability in particular.

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knowledge, and the legitimacy of scientific investigations of the mechanisms enabling our linguistic competence, all stem from the same dissatisfaction. This, in turn, is rooted in deeper disputes on basic assumptions and starting points, regarding the tasks of the desired philosophical investigation. Both Dummett and Wittgenstein seek a clear view of our linguistic practices; but Wittgenstein does not think of such a clear view as given in a systematic manner. Each individual case has to be examined on its own. And indeed, it is the systematic account which emphasizes the point and the justification of our utterances which is responsible for adding the speaker's point of view to the description of the functioning of language, and which allows for a scientific contribution as to its "mechanical" counterpart. This dispute has already been discussed in the previous chapters. What should be stressed in the present context is the lack of any connection between systematization and psychologism. It is indeed true that Wittgenstein opposes a theoretical explanation for our linguistic practices, but he conflates two different senses of 'theory', of which only one invites psychologism. This sense, which is exemplified in the following passage, refers to

scientific

theories: "It was true to say that our considerations could not be scientific ones. It was not of any possible interest to us to find out empirically 'that, contrary to our preconceived ideas, it is possible to think such-and-such' whatever this may mean... [Philosophical problems] are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known" (PI, # 1 0 9 ) . This stress upon the uniqueness and independence of philosophy is of course endorsed, wholeheartedly, by Dummett, as it was by other anti-psychologists like Frege and Collingwood. This is the principal motivation of

linguistic

Kantianism, as I have claimed all along. The other sense of 'theory' in Wittgenstein's writings refers to 'explanation': "we must do away with all explanation,

and description alone may

take its place" (ibid). "The work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose" (# 127). With this declaration Dummett certainly disagrees. 135 Moreover, he thinks that it stands in the way of the first sense: for in order to dispense with the notion of truth and representation in our explanations of meaning, and in order to retain the distinction between

135 See especially the article "Can Analytical Philosophy be Systematic, and Ought it to Be?" in TOE, esp. p.451.

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criteria and symptoms, a systematic "theory" is needed, classifying and characterizing declarations and affirmations according to certain general principles.136 Rejecting a "theory" in this second sense also blurs the distinction between semantics and pragmatics, without which a clear view of our linguistic practice is unattainable (TOE, p.450). And above all, such a rejection of theory amounts to accepting "whatever is normally or frequently said as immune to criticism", since we cannot tell "what is merely customarily said from what the principles governing our use of language and determinative of the meanings of our utterances..." (SL, p. 183). Dummett's proposed theory is not intended as a scientific one, involving hypotheses and discoveries of new facts. It is rather a systematic arrangement of our grammar in order to see it clearly and critically. Uncoupling the two senses of 'theory' (i.e. a systematic account vs. a scientific, empirical explanation), we may reject Hacker's conclusion against systematization, on the basis of the common confusions concerning "mind". "The moral of this tale" is not necessarily that "there is no substitute in philosophy for the description of the particular case" (1990, p.312), although it is true that "what mystifies us about thinking is not anything that could be explained by a theory, or by theoretical discoveries" (p.297). As Dummett makes clear, there is no reasonable limit between descriptions and explanations, and no conceivable way for explaining the particular without adhering to the general, in a systematic manner. But that does not mean that in order to explain the notions of 'thinking', 'understanding', or 'intending', we need a scientific theory, yielding new discoveries. The scientific theory is only a counterpart, and not a realization! The picture suggested is not of one single system, bearing two (or more) different manifestations, but of two distinct and independent systems: conceptual and "mechanical" (scientific, that is). *

*

*

In the present chapter we have dealt with two components of Dummett's thought that have to do with the philosophy of mind. Dummett himself scarcely elaborates on these components, and in order to comprehend his

136 This recent terminology is taken from "Realism and Anti-Realism", SL, pp.466-474.

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positions, we have had to extrapolate from the gist of the rest of his worldview. Having abandoned his former conception of language as a purely practical ability, Dummett seeks to include a "cognitive component" into his theory, without affecting his anti-psychologism. We have seen that this could be done by adding a pragmatical account of the speakers' intention, that does not betray the idea of the primacy of convention. We have also seen that the authority of self-ascription of intention and meaning can be regarded as a constitutive presumption concerning the rationality of the language users. In this we proposed to incorporate the ideas of Apel and Wright into Dummett's view. Linguistic Kantianism is thoroughly anti-psychologistic. We have tried to clarify the content of this anti-psychologism, bearing in mind that too rigid barriers between "logic" and "psychology" may betray an implicit mentalistic assumption. The result yields an emphasis on the autonomy of philosophy, interpreting 'anti-psychologism' as anti-scientism in general. From this we should not derive the false conclusion that Dummett contends that science has no contribution to make to our understanding of linguistic phenomena. The opposite is true, for wherever causes are concerned (e.g. of the biological mechanisms enabling the acquisition of language), it is the task of scientists to explain them. However, their theories cannot shed light on the philosopher's conceptual elucidations of meaning.

6 Logic and Mathematics "Is there nowhere such a thing as 'purely theoretical thinking'? There is; but it is not real thinking, and it does not lead to real knowing. It is the thing called academic thinking... Real thinking., always starts from practice and returns to practice; for it is based on 'interest' in the thing thought about; that is, on a practical concern with it" (Collingwood 1942, #18.13). Engaging in 'real thinking' is the most significant aim of this book. For if we wish to understand a philosopher's perspective, it is not enough to describe only the core of his worldview; an inspection of its applications is no less necessary. Having discussed the core of Dummett's linguistic Kantian perspective, we have now to examine its applications. The first application will naturally be to logic and mathematics. A common mistake in interpreting Dummett's views is that of assuming the wrong direction of entailment between Dummett's theory of meaning and his philosophy of mathematics. Thus Appiah, for example, launches an attack on anti-realism, understood as a generalization of intuitionism in mathematics, since "mathematical truth provides a ferociously misleading model for the semantics of a posteriori sentences".137 This is a distorted interpretation of Dummett's considerations concerning the mathematical statements, or indeed any other specific class of statements, since it misses the point of these consideration; these are derived from general semantical positions, and not vice versa. 6.1 Actual and Potential The most straightforward consequence of adopting linguistic Kantianism is the rejection of classical logic and mathematics in favour of the intuitionistic proposal. Earlier I described Dummett's worldview as an intermediate position, standing somewhere between naive objectivism and unreliable relativism. Middle positions are hard to defend: when we adopt a certain line

137 1986, p.38. Strawson (1977) and Devitt (1984) make a similar mistake. Where the latter is concerned, this is hardly surprising: genuine realists cannot think of theories of meaning as fundamental and prior in the order of constructing philosophical positions.

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of argument against one of the extremes, it is always tempting to fully exploit it, thus reaching the other extreme. The defender of middle positions has to clarify what in his arguments enables him to stop before collapsing to either extreme. Our linguistic Kantian faces such problems in every domain: forswearing atomism, he has to explain why his organic (but hierarchical) view does not collapse into holism; denying the legitimacy of adhering to the mental, he must guard himself from going all the way to radical behaviourism; being unable to accept moral realism, he has to show how relativism and subjectivism can also be rejected; and renouncing platonism in mathematics, he must face the strict finitist's claim, that a consistent application of his own argument must lead him to reject intuitionism as well. Two interesting arguments in this vein have been advanced against intuitionism: by Crispin Wright (1986)138 and by Alexander George (1988). Wright's main concern is to argue that the intuitionist cannot avoid the slippery slope which ends with strict finitism. George deduces from this result139 that intuitionism must therefore collapse into platonism, since strict finitism (or actualism) is an absurd position. I wish to show that both Wright's and George's arguments are based upon rejecting some of linguistic Kantianism most fundamental tenets; hence it is not with the relevant application of this view that we are dealing, but with its justification. However, having devoted the first part of this book to the latter subject, what remains for us now is merely to show that intuitionism is coherent and that it is the position most suitable for linguistic Kantianism. Both Wright and George blame the intuitionist for an unavoidable circularity in his definitions of the most basic operations, and even of the logical constants. Since any intuitionist definition relies on such undefined (or semi-defined) notions as 'finitude' and 'possibility in principle', Wright shows that such circularity exists in the intuitionist treatment of these notions. George agrees, extending the; scope to include such notions as 'effective procedure', but argues that the central and crucial notion lacking a noncircular account is that of 'natural number'.140 Both these arguments are convincing, but neither can rebut intuitionism at all.

138 Esp. the article "Strict Finitism" in the 1986 collection. 139 Reached by a slightly different path. 140 See esp. p. 141 and n.17.

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"Our difficulty really already begins with the infinite straight line; although we learn even as children that a straight line has no end, and I do not know that this idea has ever given anyone any difficulty. Suppose a finitist were to try to replace this concept by that of a straight segment of definite length?! But the straight line is a law for producing further" (RFM, V-36). The primary move made by the intuitionist adheres (naturally) to a grammatical insight. Frege's third dictum in the Grundlagen was "never to lose sight of the distinction between concept and object". The intuitionist in effect argues that this distinction is actually between rule and object.141 The conception of 'rule' and 'object' as distinct categories calls to mind Aristotle's fundamental distinction between actual and potential;142 actually, it is precisely this distinction dressed in linguistic terminology. Aristotle understood that both are indispensable; that neither is reducible to the other. Dummett writes that "it is quite literally true that we can arrive at the notion of infinity in no other way than by considering a process of generation or construction which will never be completed" (EI, p.56). The notion of infinity has, in other words, to be explained as a rule, a process, and not as a closed set. Thus the demand to provide a non-circular account of any of the above notions amounts to the demand to define certain specific concepts without adhering to their grammatical role; and that is a blunt denial of Frege's second principle, the "context principle". Indeed, Wittgenstein wonders: "We determine the concept of the rule for the construction of a non-terminating decimal further and further. But the content of the concept?!" (RFM, V-40). Wright and George carry on by applying the result they have achieved in different ways. Wright concentrates on demanding a satisfactory characterization of statements which are in principle effectively decidable. He provides the following characterization: "An undecided statement, S, is decidable in principle just in case an appropriately large but finite extension of our capacities would confer on us the ability to verify it or falsify it in practice" (1986, p. 113). This suggestion comes right after the following

141 Or perhaps it should even be expanded into a threesome: object/definite concept (rule)/indefinitely extensible concept (rule). For a clarification of these terms see FPM, pp.316-9. The choice among these alternative distinctions does not affect my arguments in the present chapter. 142 In general, and concerning mathematics in particular: "We must keep in mind that the word 'is' means either what potentially is or what fully is". (1941, Bk.lII, Cli.6, 206a)

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assertion: "Human beings have certain practical limitations; of intellect, will, memory, eyesight, concentration, stamina and time, etc. But any task is in principle within our compass if some finite extension of these, or others, of our capacities would bring it within our compass in practice." However, such an "empirical minded" characterization does not suit the intuitionist at all.143 Wright presents the dispute between intuitionism and strict finitism as concerning the relation between what is humanly feasible and what is humanly intelligible. He contends that while the intuitionist divorces the two, the strict finitisi equates them. In a certain sense, this is almost a platitude: as inn100 it is not humanly feasible to prove either that Ί 0 0 + 1 is prime' or that it is composite, then in regarding this statement as provable, the intuitionist certainly divorces the feasible from the intelligible. However, I believe that the essence of the dispute should rather be formulated in a slightly different way, showing Wright's explanation to be less trivial and innocent than it first seems: the difference between the strict finitist and the intuitionist is that only the latter conceives of himself as engaged in purely conceptual analysis; the former does not think much of the difference between conceptual and empirical investigations. Hence the intuitionist is not at all concerned with feasibility in the sense Wright attaches to this term; for him, physical abilities are not relevant for determining whether a statement is decidable or not. When we compare the above arithmetical statement with genuine undecidable statements, we recognise that no appeal to a general rule, or to a process, automatically confers truth on the latter; whether we refer to inaccessible regions of space-time, to unbounded quantification over infinite totalities or to subjunctive conditionals, the result is the same: we cannot be certain, a priori, that a procedure exists which confers truth or falsehood upon our statements. This is the intuitionist's real concern. Only thus may he be interpreted as applying the general linguistic Kantian considerations to the particular case of mathematics. He does not ask what our practical computational limitations are. Rather, he tries to clarify the grammar of the mathematical language,

143 As George also acknowledges. He accuses Wright of confusing two readings of the notion of 'in principle' - "a claim about our actual capacities", relying on the notion of 'effective procedure', and "a claim about what we could do in some counterfactual situation", (p. 152, n.17)

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pointing to the diversity of grammatical categories, and explaining why, in what may seem to be similar cases, there are nevertheless grammatical differences. This becomes clear when we contrast a rule's potential for generating infinitely many true statements, and the famous Jones' potential of being brave. 144 The first potential consists, to use Dummett's phrase, in "a possibility that obtains whether or not it is realized" (EI, p.58); the second "potential" is senseless unless substantiated by actual evidence. The distinction touches on that between criteria and symptoms: when criterial notions (logical constructs, mathematical rules, etc.) are concerned, the potential is clear enough without its being actualized at all; empirical statements, on the other hand, must be supported by evidence of the realization of that potential. All this brings us back to the central issue of rule-following, as Wright concedes. As I argued earlier, the dispute between Wright and Dummett on this topic concerns the degree of certainty which is conferred by rules. Dummett maintains that in following rules we unravel a given grammar, and thus that no question of scepticism, or uncertainty, has to arise, as long as this process is acknowledged as conventional and as subject to the practice of members of the community. Rules of grammar are normative, independent of the question whether they concern

finite

or infinite procedures.

This

normativity does not show them to be independent of us: "My having no doubt in face of the question does not mean that it has been answered in advance" (RFM, 1-3). The role of the community is crucial here, since only by adhering to the ongoing practice, "the way we always use it, the way we were taught to use it" may we rest content with this certainty: "That will be how meaning it can determine the steps in advance" (ibid, 1-2).145 Wright, faithful to his disapproval of the objectivity of meaning, sees little difference between such a view and platonism (1986, p. 145). As I have already argued,

144 Before becoming 'the late Jones', of course. I allude here to Dummett's classic paper "Truth", reprinted in TOE. 145 Admittedly, Wittgenstein's views on this particular instance of rule-following are opaque. Baker and Hacker (1985) interpret them in a line quite similar to the one I have just attributed to Dummett, namely, that which stresses the certainty which is conferred by rules; Wright (1980) adopts the opposite, sceptical interpretation, according to which such certainty can never be achieved, since rules depend on unceasing interpretation; Dummett attributes to Wittgenstein a strict-finitist approach (TOE, pp. 180-2). This latter interpretation I believe to be incorrect: Wittgenstein explicitly points to the similarity between finitism and behaviourism (RFM, 11-61), and while he undoubtedly favours both over platonism and mentalism, he rejects them for similar reasons.

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140

Wright's position stems from a deep scepticism concerning the power of analyticity, and hence it cannot be adopted by a linguistic Kantian, who leans heavily on this power. Wright indeed complains explicitly that answers given in this spirit make "no attempt to meet the strict finitist challenges head-on", but attempt "to show instead that the view that arithmetical truth outruns our capacities for actual decision is forced on us by certain background considerations" (p. 147). I heartily agree. The background considerations belong to an overall perspective, and particularly to a specific theory of meaning which conveys this perspective. From his point of view, the intuitionist does not have to tackle "head-on" the strict finitisi challenges, since he does not accept their background considerations, namely the requirement to explain potential in terms of actual, and the fusion of grammatical and empirical. On the other hand, he cannot force the strict finitist to accept his persistent adherence to the criteria/symptoms distinction either. Having dismissed Wright's heaviest accusation, we should now turn to his complaints regarding the intuitionist's inability to obey his own manifestation requirement. Wright is bothered by "circumstances of a kind which are in practice inaccessible not just to ordinary humans but to calculating prodigies and even to the most advanced computers" (1986, p.111). How can we possibly manifest in our behaviour our understanding of statements which 1 nn 100 appeal to such circumstances? Regarding a statement like Ί 0 0 + 1 is prime' as decidable entails committing ourselves to grasping its truth or falsity, but "how are we supposed to acquire such a grasp, and how should we test whether someone indeed does have it?" (ibid). 146 It all comes down to the interdependent notions of 'possibility in principle', 'infinity' etc. "We lack any coherent model of how a grasp of those notions, as they are intended, can be acquired at all, so that scepticism about their full intelligibility will be the only rational attitude" (p. 136). To this the intuitionist retorts by arguing that manifestation can sometimes be direct, but in other cases it has to appeal to a principle, and thus be 2 indirect. We may, e.g., manifest our understanding +1 «λλ of 100 the statement '2 is prime' in a different way from that of '100 + 1 is prime'. In the

146 Since I have already expressed m y reservations concerning the acquisition requirement, I simply ignore the issue here, save for reminding ourselves of its connection to W r i g h t ' s empiricist tendency.

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former case, we simply employ the "sieve of Eratosthenes". Our understanding of the latter statement has to be manifested indirectly, via, among other things, our understanding of simpler statements like the former. We have to exhibit our understanding of the notions of natural number, prime and composite; we then have to examine the way in which our method for deciding whether a certain natural number is prime or composite is applicable infinitely; and eventually we can assert with justified certainty that every such statement is subject to the law of excluded middle. Such an indirect manifestation is still a manifestation. When we present a child with the notion of infinity, or of recursive definitions, we can easily judge whether he has got it right: we ask him relevant direct and indirect questions, we observe his behaviour when he tries to apply this notion, etc. Wright mentions what he takes to be Wittgensteinian considerations in order to doubt the legitimacy of this kind of manifestation, and to infect it with scepticism. I, on the contrary, think that what we learn from Wittgenstein is that the same considerations could be applied to every notion, finite or infinite: once scepticism is adopted, it spreads all over our linguistic practice. But the truth is that we are on safe ground when we reach the "bedrock" level. The distinction between finite and infinite, actual and potential - says the intuitionist - belongs to such a level. It is precisely this reply which George pushes further, hoping to persuade us that by granting this much, the intuitionist in effect admits that wherever a certain basic stratum is concerned, justification ends: "this is simply what I do", we have to say. However, having acknowledged that, we have to go all the way back to platonism. George's argument hence continues from the point at which Wright left us: he believes it leads to the illegitimacy of the present formulation of the manifestation requirement and of non-circular meaning theories. It seems that a certain amount of circularity is indeed unavoidable in our linguistic explanations, and if so, then there must be a level on which only elucidation, viz. indirect manifestation, is possible. From this George concludes that the manifestation requirement has to be interpreted in a weakened sense, according to which we only have to establish some kind of connection between our grammar and our practices, or forms of life. George suggests that the fact that everybody (most notably, Brouwer himself) operates easily with quantification over infinite sets exhibits such a connection.

142

Actual and Potential

At this point in the debate, Dummett usually says that the main problem with such a weakened requirement is that it is based on an uncritical approach to language: it gives automatic permission to every part of the linguistic practice we exercise.147 If we wish, rather, to adopt a critical approach, we have no choice but to strengthen our requirements, and allow but a minimal grammatical level from which to launch our attacks on the rest of our practice. The actual/potential distinction belongs to that minimum: it is so basic, so very couched in everything we say, and therefore in the most fundamental forms of thought, that it is indeed indispensable. But with this distinction at hand, it is easy to arrive at the following characterization of infinity: "What admits of being gone through, the process however having no termination" (Aristotle, ibid, 204a).148 Granted this, "[t]he infinite turns out to be the contrary of what it is said to be. It is not what has nothing outside it that is infinite, but what always has something outside it" (ibid, 207a). Acknowledging this grammatical insight does not yield platonism, but its rejection. What we are supposed to manifest is not only that we are able to play certain language games, but that we can explain clearly and systematically what we do, without lapsing into mysterious terminologies or to grammatical confusions. In other words, our practice is justified by examining its coherence. An assured acceptance of the above characterization of infinity passes this test, for it squares with the linguistic Kantian dictum, that no meaning should be bestowed on our statements, which renders them true or false independent of our knowledge. On the other hand, the platonist alternative yields a much more burdensome picture. The platonist cannot explain clearly why he wishes to reduce potentiality to a "self-subsistent substance", and it is hard for him to supply us with a reasonable clarification of the inflated mathematical reality needed for his semantical account. For "how can the infinite be itself any thing, unless both number and magnitude, of which it is an essential attribute, exist in that way? If they are not substances, a fortiori the infinite is not" (Aristotle, ibid, 204a).

147 CN, passim, and SL, p.477f.: "Anyone who is prepared to say, 'That is simply what we do', rejects all need for justification... But one who cannot adopt this attitude, as I cannot... must either find an alternative semantics to justify our use of those modes of reasoning or declare our practice in this respect erroneous". 148 This is only part of Aristotle's characterization.

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143

Thus George's description of the intuitionist's motivation gives only part of the picture: when intuitionists analyze the meanings of the logical connectives they way they do, they do not base their analysis on their wish to avoid the circularity in the platonist explanation. Rather, they simply formalize a common and reasonable grammatical insight. Precisely the same is true of their application of the manifestation requirement: "We should distinguish between the 'and so on' which is, and the 'and so on' which is not, an abbreviated notation. 'And so on ad inf.' is not such an abbreviation. The fact that we cannot write down all the digits of # is not a human shortcoming, as mathematicians sometimes think" (PI, # 208). For this reason, however,

intuitionists should resist the traditional

formulation of their own motivation, viz. the conception of logic as secondary and as conceptually dependent on mathematics. 149 The account of 'natural number', for example, should lean on that of 'rule', and not vice versa. Taking Frege seriously means replacing Kant's - and Brouwer's - appeal to intuitions by an appeal to grammar. Hence the meanings of the connectives should be given prior to that of the notion of number, and this latter notion should be elucidated by that of a rule for producing numbers, in a manner close to Wittgenstein's formulation, brought above. This analysis shows, again, that only by giving priority to a general decision on the outlines of the desired theory of meaning can we see how its application is conceivable. But George's initial tendency is to reject this kind of priority: not only in a special case, that of attacking the manifestation requirement through one of its applications, instead of tackling it directly, but as a matter of principle. He expresses his agreement with Charles Parsons in objecting to the assumption that "the theory of the capabilities of the mind... is part of a 'first philosophy', prior to mathematics and science". 150 George is of course motivated by metaphilosophical considerations of his own. These involve denying the purely conceptual character of philosophy: problems of meaning are to be solved by adhering to "unknown side-constraints to the learning problem" (p. 150) - "cognitive" constraints, that is. In order to learn of these constraints regarding mathematical concepts, for example, we should

149 See George's allusion to this motivation, ibid. For Brouwer's original wording see his 1975, pp.508-515. 150 Parsons is quoted in p. 155, n.48.

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Actual and Potential

indeed consult mathematicians, but not only them: psychologists also have, so it seems,. interesting contributions to make to this inquiry (p. 151). This stands in complete opposition to the anti-realist presupposition that solutions to problems in the theory of meaning should be confined to a conceptual inquiry. Moreover, these solutions take the form of 'first philosophy', in the sense that the right direction is from general considerations about meanings to their applications to particular classes of statements. With these assumptions George does not deal at all. To sum up: the intuitionist accuses both his opponents, at both extremes, of committing a similar error: they misconstrue the essence of infinity, which lies in its being a rule, a process, and not an object, or a "substance". While the platonist - wishing to leave our ongoing mathematical practice intact takes this alleged substance to be fully intelligible, the strict finitisi - stressing his empiricist origins - concludes from its indefinability in finite terms that any adherence to a boundless procedure is illegitimate. In order to establish this conclusion more firmly, the intuitionist would do better if he revealed the connections between the present view and his other views. He may, e.g., point to the fact that the potential/actual distinction is available and meaningful only against the background

of a hierarchical

structure of our language.

on an

Intuitionism

is thus based

anti-holist

assumption, since holism does not leave room for potentiality: the meanings of linguistic terms are determined in relation with the whole, as it is actually practised. In light of the manifestation requirement we see that only when the components of sentences are regarded as' having definite meanings, independent of the whole of the language, may we conceive of infinite, generative processes, as determinate. Dummett rightly points to the connection between strict

finitism

and holism in this respect. An intuitionist confers on the

statement ΊΟΟ 1 0 0

+ 1 is prime' a fixed meaning in advance of its actual

proof or disproof - he is satisfied by the fact that he possesses a procedure for determining whether it is provable or not. A holist would argue that having an actual proof may change this meaning, thus he is driven to regarding this statement as undecidable. 151

151 See T O E , p. 181f. The close liaisons between

holism and strict finitism are extremely

interesting, hence it is surprising that they are very rarely discussed. In EI, p.366f, Dummett connects holism (of a particular kind) with formalism. This connection as well should be better understood. It may be interesting to examine, for example, what the holisf s attitude

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145

This result is hardly surprising. Intuitionism has of course other reasons for rejecting holism, the principal of which is the one mentioned above: only thus is the criteria/symptoms distinction available, and criticism of our logical and mathematical practices conceivable. 152 Limiting our understanding to the finite - the actual - is thus easily combined with accepting holism as a theory of meaning. This may not bother Wright too much, but it is certainly in tension with the most basic tenets of linguistic Kantianism. Indeed, Wright's attack on intuitionism is closely connected with his (somewhat reluctant) tendency towards holism. Conceiving of grammar in empirical terms, he detects tension between the stability of grammar and the evolving nature of constructivism. The tension is parallel to that between the passive nature of grammar and the active character of proving. In the next section I shall try to show how this tension can be relieved, without affecting linguistic Kantianism. 6.2 Application

and Innovation

There is a great similarity between philosophy and mathematics. Both, at least according to Dummett, may be regarded as sectors in the quest for truth, and both differ from other sectors in being purely conceptual in nature. This similarity yields a common problem for philosophy and mathematics: the problem of application. It seems as though purely analytical propositions, being abstract, cannot be applied. That philosophy should

not "leave

everything as it is", and should interfere with practice, is one of Dummett's most basic beliefs. Philosophical perspectives reach out to many practical questions, including - as we have just seen - mathematical practice. As for the latter, its own problem of applicability may be introduced as follows. A commonsensical

view of mathematics regards its propositions as

analytic, necessary and normative. This view calls for an asymmetric relation between empirical facts and truths of mathematics: while it is necessary that science make use of mathematical truths, it is also essential that mathematical

is towards such theories as Chomskyan generative grammar, which regards our having mastered some rules as manifesting a potential understanding of an infinity of sentences. As is familiar, Davidson accepts anti-holism in the level of syntax, but if his general theory of meaning has to be pushed towards strict finitism, he may have to reconsider this acceptance. 152 And see e.g. TOE, p.218 and p.303; CN, p.610f.

146

Application and Innovation

results not be affected by scientific ones. Two philosophical positions reject this commonsensical view. Empiricists deny the special, analytic, character of the mathematical propositions, and hence propose a symmetrical relation between mathematical and empirical truths. Formalists, on the other hand, reject the first conjunct of the commonsensical view, and regard mathematics as no more than a sophisticated game, which in no way invites applications. The problem facing us is, then, that of providing a reasonable account of the nature of mathematics which would vindicate the commonsensical asymmetric relation (thus repudiating both empiricism and formalism). As Dummett remarks (TOE, p.282), the idea that there is no essential difference between empirical and mathematical truths does not amount only to pointing to the defeasibility of the latter, but also to suggesting that these truths might be revised in light of empirical data. Empiricism concerning mathematics thus involves a holistic view: our theories confront experience as wholes, and if a mathematical law seems to stand in tension with too many empirical beliefs, it is this law which would be rejected, and not the scientific beliefs. Crispin Wright uses this necessary connection between empiricism and holism in order to criticize both. He argues that a radical holism cannot account for any of the moves it proposes to make in the theories, since there is no fixed core on the basis of which we accept and reject new "facts", or make any changes at all. "How, if the idea of what is compatible with the theory is itself conceived as a hypothesis integrated within the theory, can we get the concept of confirmation started at all?" (1980, p.328). The protest is, of course, reasonable, but not unanswerable. For the holist may leave room for propositions and laws which are considered as less susceptible to criticism than others, as long as their own defeasibility is acknowledged: a certain amount of pressure from "weaker" propositions may eventually lead to their rejection. The idea of what is compatible with the theory is, indeed, integrated within it, and hence is criticizable by other parts of the theory. The picture suggested harmonizes with the empiricist-holist criteria, and cannot be easily waved aside. It is clear that no priority can be given to mathematical propositions over factual ones in such a holistic account. Therefore, instead of trying to find inconsistencies in this account, the analytical philosopher - regarding the normative aspect of mathematics as indispensable - would do better to concentrate on finding a coherent and suitable alternative solution. It is well known that Wittgenstein's solution to

Logic and Mathematics

147

the problem consists of regarding the mathematical propositions not as genuine propositions at all, but as rules lying at the basis of our practices and judgements: "The proposition proved by means of a proof serves as a ruleand so as a paradigm. For we go by the rule" (RFM, III-28). Thus our initial intuitions concerning the normativity of mathematics are vindicated, and at the same time a coherent account of the applicability of mathematics can be formulated, without the need to make any concession to empiricism. It is true that in a way mathematics depend on practical, quasi-empirical facts; "calculating would lose its point if confusion supervened. Just as the use of the words 'green' and 'blue' would lose its point" (ibid, 11-75). However, "we give an axiom a different kind of acknowledgement from any empirical proposition... An axiom, I should like to say, is a different part of speech" (ibid, IV-5).

Thus, through

an acknowledged

emphasis

on the cri-

teria/symptoms distinction, the link between mathematics and its applications is formed. A prima facie problem with this account is that it does not square with the linguistic Kantian ambition to represent mathematics "as a science, that is, as a body of truths, and not a mere auxiliary of other sciences" (FPM, p.312). Conceptual enquiries, such as philosophy and mathematics, are not considered by Wittgenstein as establishing truths at all. It is probably this feature of the proposal which drives Dummett to hint that Wittgensteinian ideas are close to formalism.153 However, as I have explained in the first chapter, it all depends on how the term 'truth' is read. Dummett certainly does not take truth to be representational: his constant resistance to such a conception is unmistakable - from the early days of "Truth" until the very recent "The Source of the Concept of Truth.154 A representational

reading

of the above ambition clearly contradicts the linguistic Kantian's most fundamental distinction between criteria and symptoms - for mathematics should certainly be conceived as belonging to the criterial side of grammar, if an empiricist-holist position is avoided. The result is not, as Dummett seems to

153 FPM, p.260, concerning Waismann's "Wittgensteinian idea" of mathematics. But see also CN, p.611f., where Dummett criticizes the "language game" approach to mathematics, which deprives it "of the point its practitioners see it as having". 154 The first appeared in 1959 and was reprinted in TOE; the second - reprinted in SL - was written in 1990. An explicit rejection of representationalism where mathematics is concerned is the essence of his "What is Mathematics About?", reprinted in SL, pp.429-45.

148

Application and Innovation

think, "a bad, outmoded method of teaching mathematics in school, which drilled the pupils in techniques of computation without explaining to them why they worked, far less proving that they did or even indicating that such proofs were possible" (FPM, p.294). On the contrary, emphasizing the distinctive nature of mathematics as a system of rules, the central ity of the notion of conceptual proof becomes much more evident. It is hence by clinging to the above ambition, read in representational terms, that "the existence of pure mathematicians would indeed be hard to explain" (ibid). Dummett himself acknowledges "Frege's quite unjustifiable hostility to rules of inference that discharge hypotheses" (FPM, p.26), in light of which "logically true sentences are a mere by-product of the procedure necessary for drawing

non-logical

consequences

from

non-logical

premises"

(ibid).

Undoubtedly, Dummett does not see this conception of logic - Gentzen's conception - as depriving logic of its pure, conceptual character. There is then no justification for his objection to widen the scope to include mathematics as well, especially if we wish to retain something of Frege's logicist spirit.155 In this sense, both logic and mathematics are indeed "auxiliary of other sciences", being "merely" conceptual and not factual: but isn't this simply an expression of the analytical philosopher's most fundamental belief? Dummett indeed writes, quite in line with Wittgenstein's proposal: "The possibility of the applications was built into the theory from the outset; its foundations must be so constructed as to display the most general form of those applications, and then particular applications will not appear a miracle" (FPM, p.293). Attributing the "general form of those applications" and the way they are "built into the theory from the outset" to their being rules, and not merely generalizations of empirical statements, is the only position conceivable for linguistic Kantianism. In the article mentioned in the previous section, Alexander George tries to capture the content of the concept of 'natural number', as conceived by intuitionists. He rightly claims that such an attempt is futile, since the intuitionist will naturally "find unmotivated the assumption that there are completed totalities over which the quantifiers in [traditional definitions] range" (1988, p.144). George then attempts (following Parsons) a more appropriate

definition

along

Gentzenian

lines,

with

introduction

and

155 As does Dummett. See his "What is Mathematics About?", ibid, esp. p.432 and p.445.

Logic and Mathematics

149

elimination rules governing the predicate "N". He claims that such an implicit definition suits the anti-realist best.156 And this is true. The whole motivation behind linguistic Kantianism was to replace certain problematic Kantian terms with clearer logical and linguistic concepts. Now "framed in terms of natural deduction formalisation of logic, analytic propositions could be defined as those logically derivable, with the help of definitions, from the null set of premises; such a formulation greatly reduces the analogy between them and synthetic a priori propositions, as Frege conceived of them" (FPM, p.26). In other words, instead of solving the applicability problem in Kant's way, i.e. by attributing to the mathematical truths a synthetic a priori nature, we may solve them by understanding better the nature of analyticity, viz. by showing that logical and mathematical "truths" are merely by-products of a rule-governed procedure, which lies at the basis of all our practices. And for this purpose, Frege's contribution is not sufficient, and we have to add Gentzen's, Wittgenstein's and George's improvements. There is linkage between the problem of application and another difficulty, also raised by Dummett, concerning our ability to innovate in the course of logical and mathematical proofs.157 Both problems were originally raised by Frege, and both, despite their intriguing contents, have received little attention. This fact is surprising enough in its own right, but even more so when we notice the connection between the two problems. The problem of applicability demands clarification of the relation between grammatical and empirical propositions, while the problem of innovation has to do with classifying our subject matter as ontic or epistemic. In order to explain the fruitfulness - or the innovative potential - of logical proofs, we need to attain a coherent account of the epistemic gap existing between two distinct steps in a logical proof, despite the analytical nature of such proofs. Dummett correctly asserts that "the justifiability of deductive inference - the possibility of displaying it as both valid and useful - requires some gap between truth and its recognition" (TOE, p.314). However, he

156 Since "there will no longer be any temptation to think that there is some completed totality of predicates whose members are the permitted substituents for [the predicate] "F" in [the definition]" (ibid); rather, their collection is not closed. 157 "The Justification of Deduction", TOE, esp. p.313; LBM, pp. 195-9; FPL, 36-46.

150

Application and Innovation

continues from this justified assertion to somewhat less justified one: "it requires us to travel some distance, however small, along the path to realism, by allowing that a statement may be true when things are such as to make it possible for us to recognise it as true, even though we have not accorded it such recognition. Of course, from a realist standpoint, the gap is much wider..." (ibid). In fact, though, the realist does not widen the gap; he simply chooses a different location for it: for him, the gap is simply found between the ontic and the epistemic status of propositions. In other words, the realist classifies propositions as, say, analytic and synthetic, according to an ontic principle, i.e. "according to their intrinsic characteristics rather than how we can know them" (FPM, p.29). Regarding the logical dependence between the two steps in the proof as ontic in nature, he leaves room for an epistemic independence between them. Thus it is only the linguistic Kantian who has to confront the above problem and explain the possibility of there being necessary consequences which are, in a way, "independent of our knowledge", contrary to his general theory of meaning. For only when an account of meaning - and eventually of truth - is given in epistemologica! terms, do we face the tension between this general position and the idea that analytic judgements may nevertheless extend our knowledge. In the preceding section we have seen how central the distinction between actual and potential is to the linguistic Kantian programme. In order to take a first step towards solving the present problem we have to employ this distinction again, keeping in mind Wittgenstein's solution to the applicability problem. Dummett complains against Kant that he "made the mistake of supposing that what is arrived at by analysis cannot be new; and so he relegated analytic truths to the rank of trivialities... Frege... described the process of extracting a concept from a thought as one of analysis (Zerlegung): we have to distinguish the creative act of discerning what is not immediately apparent, but was there to be discerned, from the construction or imposition of what was not there before; and the former is more properly described as analysis than as synthesis" (LBM, p. 199). Dummett follows Frege in emphasizing that analytic propositions may innovate as well. A proof (in philosophy, mathematics, or physics) uncovers a conceptual link existing between propositions. This, precisely, is its aim; it

Logic and Mathematics

151

reveals a hidden pattern, that "was there to be discerned". But where is 'there'? Frege gives us a clue in his Grundlagen·, we may say that this pattern is "contained in the definitions, but as plants are contained in their seeds, not as beams are contained in a house" (1950, #88, p.101). The hint is found in Frege's use of an Aristotelian metaphor is: it suggests that a conceptual analysis, or a proof, turns a potential epistemic dependence into an actual one. The pattern is not at all independent of us; it is a direct result of the logical rules which lie at the basis of our thinking and acting, and of our practice in applying them. The power of analyticity comes from the indispensable nature of the potential/actual

distinction: our immanent

understanding of potentiality cannot, in principle, be elucidated in its entirety by what was actualized;158 on the other hand, regarding potential as already actually existing, independently of our conceptions and practices, means overlooking the difference between the way beams are contained in a house and the way plants are contained in their seeds.159 Again, the common mistake of both finitists and platonists is that they do not feel assured when faced with this simple grammatical elucidation. We may say with Wittgenstein that they share "an overwhelming temptation to say something more, when everything has already been described" (RFM, VI-21). The meaning of our rules both determines and is determined by their applications: each application widens its scope, thus escaping the otherwise inevitable picture of "rules as rails". While the basic levels of the meanings of our rules are given in close connection to real-life practices, this is not so with the more remote and complex levels. The basic levels are necessarily constituted by our determination of the meanings of the rules; the rest is "built into the theory from the outset". At the end of the preceding section, I mentioned Wright's allusion to a tension between the passive and stable nature of grammar and the active and evolving nature of proving, according to the constructivist picture. Kant tried to resolve these tensions by adhering to intuition, and therefore saw the mathematical statements and rules as synthetic. Frege, initiating the linguistic

158

"We are not simply taking out of the box again what we have just put into it", notes Frege, ibid.

159 This shows why Dummett is doing injustice to Frege, in dismissing his resort to the Aristotelian metaphor as "of no great help". (TOE, p.300)

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Application and Innovation

turn, rejected this solution as mystical, and insisted on analyticity. Wittgenstein continued both these routes by substituting grammar for analyticity, and by emphasizing the objective nature of grammar and the necessity for construction. However, he also contributed to the "quietisi" belief that most of our practices can be neither justified nor criticized, and the result of this contribution is now reflected in the writings of such philosophers as Lear and George. Dummett's intuitionist takes us a further step in the right direction, by comprising all the above elements, insisting both on our active part in imposing the grammatical pattern and on our passive part in discovering it. A necessary step towards this achievement is the rejection of holism and the acceptance of the distinction between conceptual and empirical. Another crucial step is acknowledging the grammatical difference between finite concepts and intrinsically infinite ones: the latter may be captured only as rules

for

generating

unending

human

processes.

Acknowledging

the

legitimacy of these rules, i.e. our ability to manifest our understanding of them, depends upon the first step - the approval of analyticity, and helps in solving the problems of the applicability and fruitfulness of mathematics.

7 Time The second application of linguistic Kantianism to be considered is the debate on the status of statements about the past. I have already expressed my belief that before discussing semantical details, attention should be paid to the philosophical picture from which they spring. In the present context, this maxim is even more crucial, since it is only with reference to the philosophical picture that the anti-realist's proposal is at all comprehensible. The general picture applied here is that which stresses the role of our grammar in shaping reality, and rejects as unintelligible any appeal to something which transcends it. The opposing, realist picture, captures reality as completely independent of our conceptions, hence it not only allows the above transcendence but regards it as unavoidable. Using these general guidelines, it is now appropriate to ask what it means to be a linguistic Kantian concerning time. Crispin Wright suggests the beautiful railway analogy, which is supposed to reflect Dummett's idea as it is expressed in, e.g., TOE, p. 18 and p. 185.: "We in no sense create the world, it does not even come into being as we explore. We journey through it, temporally speaking, as observers. But it is a world without properties other than those which we can in principle apprehend. Some of its properties are not always apprehensible; but for each of these an opportunity arises when it can, at least in principle, be apprehended - like the number of sheep in a field seen from a moving train. If the opportunity is not taken, still what could have been verified remains the case" (1986, p. 181). According to Wright, however, this picture is much too liberal, compared to the views expressed by Dummett in his article "The Reality of the Past". 160 He thus changes the analogy to fit this more restrictive view: "The picture would be that nothing true may be stated at any given time save as may in principle be verified by observation from the carriage window at that time; or may be verified nonobservationally at any time. The totality of facts would thus appear to shift continuously: there is nothing ahead on the tracks save what we can see

160 TOE, pp.358-374.

Wright's second picture

154

coming, and nothing behind save what we can see receding into the distance" (ibid, p. 183). Let us explore the dispute concerning past tense statements through examining which of the above analogies best represents the linguistic Kantian general views. Both pictures, being linguistic Kantian, reject realism. Indeed realism, in Collingwood's words, is described as "a philosophy which erred through neglecting history" (1939, p.28), and "which treats historical fact as one thing and the historian's knowledge of it as another" (1946, p. 181). Dummett expresses the same idea when he says: "What the realist would like to do is to stand in thought outside the whole temporal process and describe the world from a point which has no temporal position at all, but surveys all temporal positions in a single glance... The anti-realist takes more seriously the fact that we are immersed in time" (TOE, p.369): we cannot step out of the carriage and watch the moving train from outside. Realists opposing both pictures do not object to the common analogy of a journey through time; they would simply like to add to the world outside the train some properties which, in principle, are not apprehensible. The general outlines of such a view have already been thoroughly discussed here, hence we will now ignore this alternative altogether and concentrate upon the choice between Wright's two pictures, this is not only interesting in its own right, but bears important consequences on the characterization of the semantical features of the general position of linguistic Kantianism. It helps to spell out the content of the desired justification for our statements, hence in clarifying the proposed theory of meaning.

7.1 Wright's second

picture

The quotes from Collingwood and Dummett seem to support the second railway analogy. Dummett continues: "[BJeing so immersed, we cannot frame any description of the world as it would appear to one who was not in time, but we can only describe it as it is, i.e. as it is now" (ibid).161 Such an

161 D u m m e t t discerns in the phrase ' a s ¡t is n o w ' a hostile tone, attributing it to the realist rhetoric in rejecting anti-realism. I see nothing wrong, or hostile, in this phrase. Neither does Wright, in describing his I/N anti-realist. It accurately represents the picture of the past as receding into the distance.

Time

155

emphasis on the present amounts to diminishing the relevance of the truthvalue links which are supposed to account for our understanding of realms more remote than those with which we have immediate contact (i.e. other minds, past, future, etc.). This seems irresponsible to Wright, who takes it for granted that whatever the anti-realist may say, he must remain loyal to these links; the only thing left for him to do is reformulate them in a more convenient manner. 162 However, some remarks made by Dummett at the end of LBM make me think that Wright's assumption is premature. Dummett considers (p.341ff.) three possible realist replies to his anti-realist proposal. According to the first, our grasp of a notion of truth satisfying the laws of classical logic is simply constituted by our use of such reasoning in everyday practice. Lear's criticism of anti-realism uses precisely this sort of argumentation, which was rejected earlier as being thoroughly conservative. The second reply mentioned by Dummett depends on adopting a holist and modest theory of meaning - an attitude which does not square with Dummett's optimistic presuppositions. The third reply is of interest to us now. According to it, the practice of using classical forms of argument induces in us a notion of truth which satisfies the principle of bivalence. We first learn the meanings of a basic vocabulary by connecting the uses of the words belonging to it with specific forms of life, hence with our actual capacities. The rest of the language is connected to the basic level by analogy. For example, "we transfer our understanding of sentences referring to what is spatiotemporal ly accessible to those referring to the inaccessible" (LBM, p.344). Although the first step conforms to the manifestation requirement, the second is illegitimate in Dummett's eyes, since it involves forming the conception of a "hypothetical being with superhuman powers", which we understand only by analogy to our own limited capacities. According to Dummett, a realist cannot use this analogy to prove his point without using a circular argument, since it assumes the feasibility of forming a classical conception of truth; on the other hand, anti-realists reject the analogy as contradicting their own fundamental starting-points.

162 His essays "Realism, Truth-value Links, Other Minds and the Past" and "Anti-realism, Timeless Truth and Nineteen Eighty-Four" (both in his 1986) are devoted to elaborating on how this loyalty can be maintained.

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Wright's second picture Dummett's description of this state of affairs, although convincing, makes

a concession to the realist point of view, by taking a description of meaning, in terms of truth-value links, for granted. However, the analogy used by the realist aims mainly at reaffirming precisely this - that meaning should be given in terms of truth-values and not in terms of justification: there is, he believes, something more to justification, viz. truth, which we aim at, and of which having evidence, at least at the higher level, is only symptomatic. Denying the realist the right to use his analogy in problematic cases, e.g. those concerning inaccessible zones of experience, is actually preventing the adherence to truth-value links as an argument against anti-realism. Taking justification to be our basic notion in constructing a theory of meaning, linguistic Kantians want to frame our account of the way we understand these remote zones in terms of the evidence we have of them. 163 In other words, evidence becomes not only symptomatic to the meanings of our expressions, but actually constitutes these meanings. Wright, if I interpret him correctly, tries to do exactly this by giving a new interpretation to the truth-value links. 164 He then faces problems which could be avoided, were he to abandon the whole framework of truth-value links and replace it with a direct justification-centred account. This emphasis on evidence sends me back to Collingwood and his insights about the historian's work. Collingwood rightly connects the realistic position (the view which regards history as independent of us) with the empiricist tradition, and especially with the principles of positivism. On the other hand, he insists on the important role of evidence for understanding history: "The historian's picture stands in a peculiar relation to something called evidence... And, in practice, what we mean by asking whether an historical statement is true is whether it can be justified by an appeal to the evidence: for a truth unable to be so justified is to the historian a thing of no interest" (1946, p.246). Now Collingwood adds the following significant remark: "The things about which the historian reasons are not abstract but concrete, not universal but individual, not indifferent to space and time but

163 When he discusses the realist reply concerning statements about "other minds", Dummett acknowledges this fact: "On this realist view, the behaviour of others is our evidence for ascribing certain mental states to them, but does not give the meanings of such ascriptions" (ibid, p.345). 164 See section VII in his "Anti-realism and Timeless Truth".

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having a where and a when of their own. History, therefore, cannot be made to square with theories according to which the object of knowledge is abstract and changeless, a logical entity towards which the mind may take up various attitudes" (ibid, p.234). The significance of this remark is revealed when we try to compare two different applications of linguistic Kantianism, i.e. antirealism about the past and intuitionism. What we discover is that while in an account of the meanings of mathematical statements we are justified in adhering to the potential of a generative rule as giving the meanings of statements for which we have no direct evidence, we cannot apply a similar procedure when the past is concerned. The expression "verifiable in principle" has no place in this context. As I claimed in the previous chapter, the "in principle" clause used by the intuitionist is not meant to urge us to imagine extended intellectual powers. Rather, it simply points to the fact that in addition to object-names, our language also contains rules, having in principle an infinite potential, to which the intuitionist appeals when he says, e.g., that a statement concerning the primeness of a very large number is decidable. The appeal is then to the grammar - the meaning - of a phrase. When we come to empirical statements, the legitimacy of such an appeal to rules disappears: we face the concrete, the individual, and no "in principle" clause is applicable here at all. Thus when Dummett mentions our "capacity for knowledge" as relevant to the meaningfulness of statements about the past (TOE, p.364), he means that what is relevant is not only what we actually know, but also what we can know; but this latter phrase refers to what we actually can know, i.e. the knowledge which we now have the means of attaining, and not what we can know "in principle" - in the absence of a suitable principle, or rule, which would eventually give us the desired piece of knowledge if we followed it. We recognize once again the centrality of the distinction between criteria and symptoms to the linguistic Kantian worldview. The possibility of maintaining an intuitionist view in mathematics, while rejecting a parallel position concerning the past derives precisely from this distinction. However, we should be very careful in spelling out the consequences of this difference. For a realist may appeal precisely to the dissimilarities between the mathematical and the empirical cases, in order to show that anti-realism can be applied (if at all) only in the first case, viz. to grammatical statements.

158

Wright's second picture Such an objection to anti-realism is actually raised by Appiah. Appiah's

main complaint against anti-realism is that it is an illegitimate generalization of a theory of meaning, which may perhaps be suitable to mathematical statements, to the general, defeasible discourse. His argument is in two stages: he starts by arguing that "the bulk of non-mathematical sentences... can only be confirmed to a greater or lesser degree", hence that "we should move from speaking of recognition that S, to speaking of acquiring strong evidence that S" (1986, p.42); then he urges us to acknowledge the great similarity which turns out to exist between the problematic statements (concerning the past, other minds, etc.) and ordinary non-mathematical statements. What could the anti-realist's response to this charge be? First, he should warn his challenger not to insert holistic assumptions into his account; for the distinction between criteria and symptoms is not at all equivalent to that between mathematical and non-mathematical statements. Denying this fact amounts to regarding every non-mathematical statement as synthetic, as in a holistic account of language. And as we have seen in the third chapter, such holism cannot be accommodated within an anti-realist account of meaning: an account in terms of justification is plausible only if there is a "bedrock" layer of grammatical statements. However, having clarified this, we still owe the realist a separate answer to his second claim. Such an answer is arrived at through another conceptual distinction: whereas in the case of ordinary, non-grammatical statements we can indeed attain (only) defeasible evidence, in the case of the "problematic" statements we may face a situation in which we cannot achieve any kind of evidence at all. Therefore, Appiah's conclusion is not a sound one: we may happily acknowledge that most of our ordinary statements are defeasible, without at the same time admitting the meaningfulness of statements which are not defeasible at all, since no evidence may either justify or falsify them. Appiah's criticism does require further discussion, though. For there seems to be a tension between the anti-realist's

acknowledgement

of

defeasibility and his refusal to acknowledge the centrality of the notion of truth in an account of meaning. We can imagine, for instance, having a piece of evidence that P, which we consider reliable, but which later turns out to be faked. Appiah contends that in such a case, we are now in a position to say that 'there was evidence that Ρ but it is now lost forever' - contrary to Dummett's conception of evidence concerning the past (in TOE, p.371).

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Appiah then suggests the anti-realist's reply: "We have not lost the evidence, we have discovered that we never had any. The problem with this reply is that it looks as though Dummett will have to deny that we ever have any evidence that is defeasible... Dummett appears to require that Ί have/had evidence that P' entails that P; and the anti-realist proposal would then be inconsistent with the plain fact, acknowledged by Dummett... that our judgements about the past are recognized by us to be defeasible" (ibid, p.lOlf). In short, defeasibility necessitates a notion of truth which transcends justification. What does 'defeasible' mean, according to the anti-realist? The answer is, of course, closely connected to the account we gave in the first chapter of Dummett's conception of truth. Truth resembles natural number in not being a definite concept, whose extension is given once and for all. Rather, it is the outcome of an infinite application of a rule; and the rule is that which equates it with general acceptance, i.e. with the current evidence existing for it.165 Now does this conception indeed exclude defeasibility? Appiah claims that it does, since the anti-realist has to accept "the proposition that 'something that is now evidence that a year ago there was evidence for the truth of "P" is necessarily evidence justifying the assertion now of "It was the case a year ago that P'""; but this is correct "only on the assumption that the relevant evidence is indefeasible evidence, evidence whose presence is inconsistent with the falsity of what it evidences" (p. 102). However, as a devoted realist, Appiah ignores the evolving nature of 'truth' and 'falsity', as against that of 'defeasibility'. As a result, we get the alleged contradiction between the defeasibility of Ρ (Ρ was false at time t) and the existence, at that time, of evidence that Ρ (Ρ was true at time t). But using the anti-realist vocabulary consistently, what we say is rather that given the equivalence between 'P' and 'there is evidence that P', we can now conclude that there was after all no evidence that P: we thought we had such evidence (i.e. that Ρ was true) but now it turns out that we were wrong (P was false) - and this is precisely what we mean by defeasibility. 166

165 The analogy to the notion of the rule for generating is exactly the opposite in but incessantly gives it a

of natural number is limited, of course: while a further application numbers does not revise the outcome of previous applications, it the case of truth. Its generating rule does not extend this notion, new content.

166 Defeasibility is indeed revealed as crucial to linguistic Kantianism. See Dummett's discussion of the place of falsification in a theory of meaning in SL, esp. 83f. A falsificationist theory "links the content of an assertion with the commitment that a speaker

160

Wright's second picture This reply has to be sharply distinguished from the following: Ρ was

indeed true, since we once had evidence for it, but now that we do not have this evidence, Ρ is false. Linguistic Kantianism, according to this latter formulation, rejects the timelessness of truth: being immersed in time, human beings cannot conceive of anything eternal, and truth is of no exception. Such a position is expressed by Wright, when he says, that "the I/N anti-realist may accept the truth-value links, appropriately interpreted, and the timelessness of statements, at the cost of surrender of, or agnosticism about, the timelessness of truth" (1986, p.201). Wright concedes that such a conception of truth, as "capable of becoming and ceasing to be" is extremely uncomfortable. He is right, of course. But this is the reason for denying his result, at the cost of also rejecting the account of meaning in terms of truth-value links, "appropriately" interpreted. The anti-realist does not have to bother with formulating and reformulating the truth-conditions of the present tensed sentence S at the time of utterance (tl) and afterwards (t2J, and with their relations with the truth-conditions of S's past tense transformation then and now. Rather, he should take truth to be timeless but unusable as an elucidatory term on which a theory of meaning is founded. We have to stop inquiring about truth-value links and conditions, and stick to such non-transcendent notions as evidence and justification. 167 Assigning such an important role to evidence no doubt tallies with the general views of linguistic Kantianism. The logic that should govern our everyday, non-mathematical statements is the same logic that should govern the mathematical ones: the meanings of the connectives we use in both cases are to be given in the intuitionistic manner. This is, of course, a revisionary proposal, but perhaps it is less "wildly revisionary" than Appiah imagines

undertakes in making that assertion; an assertion is a kind of gamble that the speaker will not be proved wring." (p.84) 167 Wright's position is understandable, taking the central notion of an anti-realist meaning theory to be verification, and not justification. The idea of verifiability is indeed in tension (at least prima facie) with defeasibility, since it is based on regarding truth as a finite extension, and on our capacity to attain conclusive evidence for (most of) our statements. On these assumptions, the anti-realist conception of past tense statements does yield contradictions, and in order to prevent them, Wright seems to have no other choice but admitting "statements which, while true at the time they are made, were formerly and will subsequently again come to be not true" (ibid, p. 188). Replacing 'verifiability' with 'justifiability' frees us from both these assumptions, hence also from dealing with truthvalue links.

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(p. 101). Appiah (and many others - indeed, even Dummett) expresses his belief that the realistic conception represents common sense more faithfully. However, this belief frequently enough proves to be unfounded. Take, for example, the question of defeasibility. Dummett maintains that "a realist theory of meaning can invoke only conditions that render our statements definitely true; but an anti-realist is free to acknowledge that there may be no such conditions recognizable by us" (TOE, p.xxxviii). This accusation of realism seems to me a just one: taking truth as a definite concept, the realist faces the following dilemma: if he admits that truth (in most cases) transcends our judgements, he indeed makes room for defeasible judgements, but at the cost of founding his theory of meaning on an immanently inexplicable notion. On the other hand, if he refuses to admit such a primitive notion, he has to connect truth to our judgements in the way suggested by Wright, but without the latter's denial of the timelessness of truth. What we get, then, is that (most of) our judgements are timeless as well - in other words, indefeasible. And this result is no less absurd, and much less faithful to our practice and beliefs, than the anti-realist proposal. Appiah seems to suspect that this is the case, and therefore tries to prevent the above dilemma by rejecting its first step, viz. taking truth as a definite concept. The anti-realist of course welcomes this move, as a first step towards bridging the gap between himself and his opponent. But is it indeed a legitimate move on the part of the realist? Appiah calls Carnap to his assistance. Carnap attacked Reichenbach and Neurath for their invitation to abandon the notion of truth, on the basis that "it can never be decided with absolute certainty for any given sentence whether it is true or not. I agree", declares Carnap, "that this can never be decided. But is the inference valid which leads from this result to the conclusion that the concept of truth is inadmissible? It seems that this inference presupposes the following major premise Ρ: Ά term (predicate) must be rejected if it is such that we can never decide with absolute certainty for any given instance whether or not the term applies.'... It can easily be seen that the acceptance of Ρ would lead to absurd consequences" (Carnap 1936, p. 122). Carnap's fallacy lies in assuming that Reichenbach and Neurath had to generalize their criticism of the notion of truth, while such a generalization is indeed absurd. But what they did suggest was rather to abandon the notion of truth as a fundamental

explanatory

notion, exactly as the anti-realist does. Of course there are vague terms, but

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Wright's second picture

if we want to attain a clear view of our linguistic practice, we do not wish to base it on an obscure notion. Thus, if Appiah indeed maintains that 'truth' is indefinite (and I believe that he does), he would do better to stop using it in his explanations of meanings. The result is that if our strongest commitment is to the idea that a systematic account of our practices should be sought, and that we may be required to revise our practices in its light - we should not be bothered with the above inevitable results. The realist account betrays common sense in its own right, and we have only to choose which deviation seems to us more adequate. If, on the other hand, our strongest commitment is to practice itself, we should not bother ourselves with this dispute at all.

7.2 Wright's first picture The second railway-analogy thus seems to represent adequately the general linguistic Kantian convictions. We are trapped in time, and cannot inspect our route from outside. Hence if we did not, at the right moment, count the number of sheep in that field, we cannot regard this number as decidable "in principle", and as the field recedes into the distance, the meanings of such expressions as 'the number of sheep in that field' recede with it. But isn't this analogy too crude? and too restrictive? Does it indeed represent faithfully all the linguistic Kantian's convictions? Perhaps it is worthwhile to look into the details of Wright's first picture as well, and check whether it may be taken as a serious alternative to the second picture offered to linguistic Kantianism. The reasoning behind the first picture is as follows: the main motivation of linguistic Kantianism is to remove any adherence to obscure, mystical properties in its account of language. Dummett's principle Κ states that "if a statement is true, it must be in principle possible to know that it is true" (SL, p.61). A realist who accepts this principle "will have to interpret 'in principle possible' in a fairly generous way. He will not hold that, whenever a statement is true, it must be possible, even in principle, for us to know that it is true, that is, for beings with our particular restricted observational and intellectual faculties and spatiotemporal viewpoint; it may be possible only for beings with greater powers or a different perspective or scale" (ibid). The

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advocate of the first picture grants all that, thus denying realism. He wishes to argue, though, that the second picture, even according to its proponent's confession, does not leave room for applying the "in principle" clause at all, save for the mathematical case. The first picture is sometimes adopted by moderate realists. It is close, for example, to some of Putnam's ideas, and has some affinities with the view defended by Appiah in For Truth in Semantics. The problem is that it is combined there with other, genuinely realistic views. (For example, both philosophers insist that the notion of truth is indispensable

- as a central

notion - in any account of meaning.) However, when their linguistic Kantian ideas are extracted from the rest, the result is a coherent defence of the first picture. Both Putnam and Appiah accept principle K. Moreover, they also stress that the truth (or falsity) of a statement cannot be determined independently of us, and that an admissible explanation should not depend on superbeings' properties. But this, they argue, does not necessarily lead to a rejection of bivalence for most of the past tensed statements. I shall not henceforth stick to the actual arguments raised by Appiah and Putnam. Instead, I shall try to capture their gist. Their purified linguistic Kantian arguments will be represented by their proponent F (for First picture). F grants that the central notion in a theory of meaning should be justification. Indeed, he bases his attack on the supporter of the rival picture precisely on this point. For acknowledging the inappropriateness of 'verifiability' and replacing it with 'justifiability' does not only consist of admitting that conclusive evidence is hard to find. Rather, it amounts to recognizing the unintelligibility of basing a theory on any term that, when analyzed, contains 'truth' as a necessary component. When we connect meaning and understanding with justification, we aim to connect them with "use", viz. with our practice, and not with an obscure and confused notion. Now justification takes various forms in various contexts. The kind of justification which is needed in one context may be regarded as superfluous, or as insufficient, in another. The same goes for the logical connectives, of course. A linguistic Kantian is committed to reading PvQ, for example, as asserting that either Ρ is justifiable or Q is. F does not dispute this position. But, he argues, whereas by 'justification' in mathematics we simply mean 'proof, and in science we mean 'evidence', something much less conclusive is required in the less formal parts of our discourse.

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Wright's first picture

Let us examine Collingwood's demand for evidence. Collingwood speaks as a historian - a scientist - when he says: "The historian is not allowed to claim any single piece of knowledge, except where he can justify his claim by exhibiting... the grounds upon which it is based... Memory is not history, because history is a certain kind of organized or inferential knowledge, and memory is not organized, not inferential at all" (1946, p.252). Memory is absolutely acceptable as evidence, or justification, in non-scientific contexts, however. In such contexts, serving as a legitimate justification, it has a role in determining the meanings of past tensed statements. Posing more severe restrictions on the content of 'justifiability' in our everyday discourse hence amounts to scientism - the inappropriate adoption of scientific standards in the wrong circumstances. This interpretation of linguistic Kantianism confers new life on the "in principle" clause, which was brutally assassinated by the alternative interpretation. "The possibility in principle to know that Ρ is true" now means that we can have evidence for Ρ (even in cases when, regretfully, we don't actually have it) - evidence which we could easily recognize and understand, without committing a conceptual fallacy. By "we can have evidence" F means that it is only accidental that we do not have such evidence, and indeed that we can still conceive of circumstances in which the required evidence will pop up sometime, after all. According to these lines, bivalence holds for the following statements: A: There were 25 sheep in the field we saw an hour ago. B: Cleopatra ate dates on her last birthday. (Appiah's example, in 1986, p.72)168 Bivalence holds for A, since it is either justifiable in principle that A or it is justifiable in principle that ~A. We could have counted the number of sheep when we saw them, and even if we did not do so, it is still possible that one of the passengers took a picture of that field, and that this detail will be

168 F hesitates about whether bivalence holds also for the following statement, C: There was a rabbit where my house now stands 2000 years ago. (Putnam's example, in 1991, p . l l . ) The notion of the whereabouts of my house 2000 years ago is so ambiguous, leaning heavily on other extremely indefinite notions - such as the geological conditions in that time, that it seems irresponsible to speak of its truth or falsity. This should not intimidate F, though. It is interesting and fruitful to discuss problematic examples, but they should not induce a total rejection of the view from which they emerge.

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discovered sometime in the future. If this photograph were presented to us, we could easily observe that there were exactly 25 sheep, and justify A. Nothing in this description should disturb the linguistic Kantian. In asserting that Av~A, we count only on us, "with our particular restricted observational and intellectual faculties and spatiotemporal viewpoint": the above explanation does not involve any capacities which only superbeings have; it does not widen the scope of "us" to include people who lived in the past; and it does not involve any conceptual leap, or grammatical confusion. The same goes for B: it is not absurd to suppose that we will, someday, find a papyrus which depicts Cleopatra's last birthday, including exact details of her meals. It is crucial to distinguish between this argument and the one brought up by Appiah in favour of the decidability of B. Appiah suggests that "there might be an obvious test for somebody differently located from us, though it is logically impossible that we should get to their location" (1986, p.72); for example, "there is an obvious test for Cleopatra's grand vizier, but none for us". F, as a linguistic Kantian, regards such a suggestion as abandoning the idea that we are immersed in time. Conceiving of the grand vizier's testimony as an objective justification uncouples its meaning from the current linguistic practice which is supposed to provide the criteria for its use (i.e. its meaning). It hence amounts to stepping outside the temporal process - an inadmissible move, from the anti-realist perspective. F therefore insists that the justifiability in principle will be for us. For the same reason, he rejects also Russell's proposal to regard our inability to look directly into the past as a "medical impossibility". The past is not an objective entity, which we can inspect from a neutral point. Our inability to look into it is hence not "medical", but logical; but this means that it is in principle

impossible to rely on it when we

look for justifications. It may be useful to compare the status of A and Β with the following statements D and E, to which bivalence does not apply according to the present position: D: Hamlet died at the age of 25. E: The late Jones was brave. (Where this, as usual, is said about a man who never had the opportunity to manifest his bravery, and this last detail is verified beyond doubt). Reading "Hamlet", we can estimate that Hamlet's age on his dying day was somewhere between 16 and 30. But in principle,

there is nothing more

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Wright's first picture

we could ever know about his age. There is no conceivable answer which may determine this detail, hence D is not decidable. Moreover, it is not decidable by anyone: neither God, nor any other "superbeing" can decide whether D is true or false. This is, indeed, why an adherence to them is mistaken in the first place; for as Dummett rightfully notes, "it is a persistent illusion that, from the premise that God knows everything, it can be deduced that he knows whether any given proposition is true or false... and that his omniscience therefore entails that the proposition is either true or false" (LBM, p.351). F forewarns his fellow linguistic Kantian from pressing his conception of "history as story" too hard. (Though there certainly is a similarity in essence, of course.) The major difference between the two is that while it is always possible, in principle, to find new evidence concerning past events, having read a story, we are in principle devoid of any further evidence; all we can do is interpret the evidence we already have, and deduce logical consequences from it. While F says that bivalence does not apply to D and E, he does not treat them as sheer nonsense, since we do understand these statements. How, then, do we manifest that understanding? Here F uses the gist of the third realist reply mentioned in the previous section. "He admits that we learn the most primitive parts of language by connecting their use with our own actual capacities... But, he claims, having mastered this lowest level of language, we proceed to higher levels by analogy" (LBM, p.344). Analogy is a misleading term, though, for it invites the perplexing metaphor of "extended capacities". What F offers instead is that we acknowledge the possibility of indirect manifestation. Meanings of sentences are determined by the meanings of their component words; hence if we may manifest our understanding of the component words of the statement Ρ and we correctly use its underlying structure, and if no conceptual mistake is involved, there is no reason to deny that we understand what Ρ expresses. In order to acknowledge indirect manifestation, F should not count on "the formation of the right mental conception of the principles underlying those rules" (LBM, p.344). His opposition to representationalism sustains here no less than it does anywhere else. As we have seen, anti-realists may accommodate a conception of rulefollowing without invoking "mental" explanations. Taking grammar seriously, they maintain that such explanations, if cogent at all, belong to the scientific realm and have nothing to do with conceptual elucidation. Thus F simply

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refers to the underlying grammatical principles themselves. Dummett accuses the realist of transferring "our understanding of sentences referring to what is spatiotemporally accessible to those referring to the inaccessible". We can conceive of "the capacity to view at will any region of space-time, so that all are accessible... by extension from the capacity to survey a small spatiotemporal region" (ibid). But F is not a realist, and is not open to the same charge. There are two major differences between him and genuine realists. First, he does not regard the evidence for asserting past tensed statements as irrelevant to their meanings. As a result, like the more radical anti-realist we discussed in the previous section, he is not interested in truth-value links as enabling us to refer to the inaccessible. What is in principle inaccessible remains so. Secondly, the "analogy" he uses does not place us outside time, equating our abilities with those of potential past witnesses. It merely aims to widen the scope of the 'justifiable in principle', since what we actually know, and even what we actually can know, are not the only statements to which we may attribute justifiability; according to F, then, though we cannot directly access the past, a large part of the statements about it are "accessible (justifiable) in principle". I opened the preceding chapter with a brief discussion of linguistic Kantianism as a middle position. Where its application to mathematics was concerned, it was very clear which are the extreme positions, rejected by the intuitionist. On one side stands the platonist, who maintains that the truth of mathematical statements is independent of our means of proving it; on the other, there is the strict finitisi, who bases his attack on platonism solely on the manifestation requirement, arguing that since manifestation is our only criterion, there is no essential difference between quantification over infinite domains and quantification over domains which are so big that they are not actually

surveyable.

Intuitionism,

i.e. linguistic Kantianism

concerning

mathematics, criticizes both platonism and strict finitism for committing the same conceptual error, by denying the independent and irreducible nature of rules in our language. The intuitionist attacks platonism for ignoring the manifestation requirement altogether, and the strict finitisi since he ignores the possibility of indirect

manifestation. Now when we come to discuss

statements about the past, we discover that F represents a middle position quite similar to that of the intuitionist. On one side we may still find the realist, insisting that the truth of statements concerning the past is independent

168

Wright's first picture

of our ability, even in principle, to discover it, and who opts for a representational, truth-conditional meaning theory. On the other side now stands the proponent of the second picture, who rejects indirect manifestation and who insists that only what can be actually justified by us now may be regarded as a legitimate meaning-providing component. F's position thus seems to stand and fall hand in hand with intuitionism. Strict finitism, like radical antirealism about the past, is indeed anti-platonist and revisionary but lacks the charm of also being reasonable. F's proposal is much less revisionary than its rival's. The latter would call it, scornfully, a "moderate proposal". It is therefore important to emphasize that this proposal is not realist. Moreover, it does not make any concession to realism. On the contrary: it urges us to take seriously both the similarities and the differences between mathematics and other discourses, and to construct a theory of meaning which would be unified, but without forgetting the differences between various contexts of application. I cannot resist the temptation to end this section with another quote from Collingwood, stressing the distortion which an exaggerated stress on present evidence may induce into the anti-realist view: "Historical thought is in one way like a perception... But what we perceive is always the this, the here, the now... Historical thought is of something which can never be a this, because it is never a here and now... Hence all theories of knowledge that conceive it as a transaction or relation between a subject and an object both actually existing, and confronting or compresent to one another, theories that take acquaintance as the essence of knowledge, make history impossible" (1946, p.233).

7.3 Conclusion Well, this is an extremely perplexing issue. My natural inclination is towards the reasonable picture depicted by F, but the radicalism of the second picture has its own appeal. I am not sure that Dummett settles on the second picture either. The anti-realist, he says, "feels unknowability in principle to be intolerable and prefers to view our evidence for and memory of the past as constitutive of it. For him, there cannot be a past fact no evidence for which exists to be discovered..." (LBM, p.7). All the more baffling is the fact that both pictures seem compelling precisely at the point they link to the

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intuitionistic position. The proponent of the second picture sounds correct when noting that only where grammatical rules are concerned, is there room for applying the "in principle" clause. For "an intuitionist is compelled to appeal to the hypothetical outcome of procedures we cannot in practice carry out because of their length" only because "they are composed of steps each of which we know how to take" (LBM, p.349). An anti-realist concerning the past has no such procedure to appeal to. He thus has to adhere to the only procedures he actually has, and there is no known procedure for deciding the truth or falsity of "Cleopatra ate dates on her last birthday". On the other hand, F, the proponent of the first picture, sounds right in allowing for indirect manifestation. Only thus, as far as I can see, can intuitionism be seriously maintained. What is called for, then, is some kind of synthesis between the two pictures. This synthesis will adjust the generally correct ideas of F to accommodate some of the insights of the second picture. It will emphasise first, that our understanding of past events leans on the conception of evidence; secondly, that any appeal to superhuman capabilities is incomprehensible, and thirdly, that although many statements about the past are necessarily either true or false and there is always a possibility of finding new evidence in favour of most of the empirical past tensed statements, some statements are intrinsically indeterminate and bivalence does not apply to them. In admitting defeasibility we indeed concede that there may in principle be some further relevant evidence, yet unknown, that carries with it the potential of changing the truth-value of the defeasible statement. In this way, there is sense to the distinction between actual and potential not only in the mathematical context, but also in the empirical one. This insight has to be displayed by our theory of meaning, or, more precisely, by our conception of the basic term 'justifiability', and especially by admitting the possibility of indirect manifestation of understanding, for certain classes of statements. All these components make the synthesized solution genuinely anti-realist. I wish to conclude the discussion of anti-realism about the past with a common complaint, usually brought up by Putnam, against this position, in either form. Putnam urges us to reflect on the sentence 'Caesar crossed the Rubicon'. Our ordinary linguistic practice, he claims, "is deeply informed by a 'realist' picture. For an educated person, it is virtually as if we had seen Caesar crossing the river. That the statement is just something we 'utter' in

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response to present day (or even present and future) 'assertability conditions' is an idea infinitely remote from our actual form of life" (1991, p.12). Moreover, this realist conception has important moral consequences: "To think of 'Caesar-talk' as just a language game which enables me, let us say, to predict what I will find when I read ancient documents, history books, etc., is not at all the same as acknowledging Caesar as a 'fellow passenger to the grave'" (ibid, p. 13). But is this really the picture that we live by? Isn't it also true that "[e]x hypothesi, the historian is not an eyewitness of the facts he desires to know" (Collingwood, 1946, p.282)? Or that "[w]e shall never know how the flowers smelt in the garden of Epicurus, or how Nietzsche felt the wind in his hair as he walked on the mountains..." (ibid, p.296)? We know very well that despite our willingness to depict these facts, there is an unbridgeable gulf between us and them - and that this is precisely because they are facts about the past. Moreover, we know that the only bridge which gives meaning to our statements about the past, is the bridge of evidence: "..the evidence of what these men thought is in our hands; and in re-creating these thoughts in our own minds by interpretation of that evidence we can know, so far as there is any knowledge, that the thoughts we create were theirs" (ibid). This picture seems to me no less important than the one cited by Putnam. It is in our nature to imagine, to fill the missing gaps with details: we not only "see" Caesar and "feel" Nietzsche; we also "see" Ophelia's long hair and "feel" Hamlet's agony - but we know how to distinguish between what we "see" or "feel" in this way and what we treat as facts based on evidence. The difference between observing in the presence and "looking into" the past is part of a strong picture, as well as the distinction between actual, potential and inconceivable evidence. Although this chapter is devoted to a discussion of the linguistic Kantian conception of the past, a word must be added about Dummett's conception of causality, since the topics are naturally interwoven. At the base of Dummett's position we find the idea that a description of reality is always dependent, in part, upon a particular point of view, and upon certain decisions made by the person giving the description.169 Thus whereas we indeed widen our conception of evidence to include potential evidence,

169 See, e.g., "Bringing About the Past", in TOE, pp.333-350, esp. p.349.

it is

Time

171

important to remember that any kind of evidence (actual and potential) is not independent of our own conceptions and intentions; in other words, we have to abandon the notion of independent, "pure" evidence, as we abandoned that of independent reality. Applying this position to the past means to stop thinking that, "for any past event, it is in principle possible for me to know whether or not it took place independently of my present intentions" (TOE, p.349). In general, this idea of course amounts to denying the plausibility of the notion of a "complete" description of reality. 170 This idea must sound correct to eveiy linguistic Kantian. Denying the intelligibility of a notion of reality which is independent of our descriptions, he drops every means for attaining a complete description. What we seem to get is the beginning of an account of meaning which takes history seriously. Its general outlines reflect the intuitions which have often been restated since first initiated by Kant and strengthened by Hegel. Dummett's contribution here is, first of all, in bringing it back to the centre of ongoing philosophical discussion, and especially in showing that it goes hand in hand with a justificationist - rather than truth-conditional - theory of meaning. In other words, it is not an isolated, "local" view, but part and parcel of a unified worldview. As such, it also affects the general view: it invites a thorough discussion of the right interpretation of the notions of truth and justification, and a further investigation of the relations between actual and potential. For "this separation between what is attempted in principle and what is achieved in practice is the lot of mankind, not a peculiarity of historical thinking". This quote is again from Collingwood (1946, p.247), whose Kantian/Hegelian insights should guide, I believe, any attempt to build the sort of theory of meaning we are looking for. I shall elaborate on this in my concluding remarks, but before that I wish to examine a third application of linguistic Kantianism.

170 I will return to this point in the Epilogue.

8 Normative Applications The merits of using a fresh term like 'linguistic Kantianism', rather than its equivalent 'global anti-realism', are revealed more forcefully in the normative discourse than in any other. Anti-realism is usually conceived as defying moral objectivity, and no attention is paid to the question whether or not it is based upon a reality which is independent of our knowledge of it. Here, for example, is how Geoffrey Sayre-McCord defines anti-realism concerning moral statements: "There are two ways to be an anti-realist: embrace a noncognitivist analysis of the claims in question or hold that the claims of the disputed class, despite their being truth-valued, are none of them true" (1988, p.5). This definition follows the definition of realism as "the view that some of the disputed claims literally construed are literally true". While such definitions are merely obscure, the following claim by Mark Platts is rather outrageous. Rejecting moral realism, he argues, "can be the end for a reflective being like us by being the beginning of a life that is empty, brutish, and long" (1980, p.80). Such a claim is the result of regarding anti-realism as anti-intentionalist; it will be represented in what follows by McDowell's criticism. Such and similar evaluations of any position which rejects moral realism stem from taking for granted a dilemma between cognitivist and noncognitivist positions. The aim of the first section of the present chapter is therefore to show that this dilemma is based on accepting 'truth' as the basic notion of any theory of meaning, and hence to conclude that it does not arise for anti-realists at all. The alternative is a justificationist theory of meaning. Though it does entail a rejection of the principle of bivalence, applying to the ethical discourse, it does not defy objectivism. This is argued in the second section, while the connection between justificationism and a systematic approach, as it is established in the normative discourse, is emphasized in the third. Dummett himself has not devoted any elaborate discussion to a normative application of his linguistic Kantianism; however, he has expressed (both in writing and in deeds) some of his moral convictions. In the fourth section I point to some connection between these moral beliefs and the preceding discussion.

Normative Applications 8.1 Cognitivism and

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non-cognitivism

The debate between cognitivist and non-cognitivist approaches to moral discourse was influenced by the moral discussions of the 18th and 19th centuries, but reached its heyday in the first half of the present century. In the 1950's and 1960's it seemed that cognitivism, exactly like platonism in mathematics, could not be held any more, being too naive. Nevertheless, again like the realistic approach to mathematics, it was not abandoned. Rather, a new, 'sophisticated' version has emerged, attempting to remove the old blunders while staying faithful to the fundamental characteristics of moral cognitivism. Let us consider some of the claims raised against non-cognitivism by John McDowell, a 'sophisticated cognitivist'. The choice of McDowell as a representative is not coincidental: his complaints against non-cognitivism are very similar to the ones he raises against Dummett's 'full-blooded' approach to theories of meaning. The main controversy, in both cases, seems to be about the anti-realist's alleged adherence to an external viewpoint, from which our forms of life can be judged. As McDowell sees it, a 'full-blooded' theory of meaning requires that "particular episodes of language use must be recognizable for what they essentially are without the benefit of understanding of the language" (1987, p.69); moral non-cognitivism involves a similar attitude, since it, too, involves "a sensitivity to an aspect of the world as it really is (as it is independently of value experience)" (1981, p. 143). Thus, according to McDowell, both positions share the representationalist mistake of adhering to a picture of "rules as rails": they assume an objective characteristic, common to all the things that are binded together under a concept (be it 'square' or 'good'), independently of the practice of the community. According to the view advocated by McDowell, on the other hand, the vocabulary of a particular human community can be described only from within, that is by sharing the particular community's beliefs and evaluations: "one shows one's mind, in one's words, only to those who understand one's language" (1987, p.70). In the ethical case, this amounts to admitting that "we can learn to see the world in terms of some specific set of evaluative classifications... only because our affective and attitudinative propensities are such that we can be brought to care in appropriate ways about the things we learn to see as collected together by the classifications"

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(1981, p.142). In general, McDowell's recommended approach is to admit that "we are simply and normally immersed in our practices", and hence to forsake the philosophical wonder "how their relation to the world would look from outside them", as well as the need for "a solid foundation discernable from an external point of view" (1981, p. 153). This attack sounds very convincing to anybody who acknowledges the unintel 1 igibility of a description of reality which is independent of our own concepts, or our linguistic practice. It is therefore warmly accepted by the linguistic Kantian; and this is precisely where McDowell's claims seem to overshoot their targets. For the main problem with his assault on fullbloodedness and non-cognitivism is that it is extremely unfaithful to the assaulted views. 171 As I argued earlier,172 we may see the debate between modest and 'fullblooded' theories of meaning as a debate on who is the most faithful to the Wittgensteinian legacy. The proponent of modesty quotes the dictum that "explanations come to an end somewhere", meaning that we cannot give an explanation of our basic vocabulary (save by trivial T-sentences), since it would require an "external" standpoint. The anti-realist insists on seeing the linguistic practice as a part of a wider and more complex social practice. The meanings of the basic terms are hence given, according to him, by connecting them with non-linguistic practices; but these practices cannot be seen as "external" in any way, and neither can their description. However, allowing for a non-circular (or 'informative') description of these practices does indeed seem to involve an adherence to some kind of "neutral" level of description. The problem therefore is whether it is possible to admit such a level without collapsing into the old positivistic framework. An affirmative answer is conceivable, at the cost of assuming, as Dummett does, that there is a

171 This is made clear by Simon Blackburn's reply (1981) and by Lear's discussion of McDowell's account of non-cognitivism (1983). The first stresses the fact that noncognitivism is not at all committed to the picture of "rules as rails", since admitting that there are common elements in things which elicit common reactions does not necessarily entail that the characterization of the common reaction will be "as from the outside". The second emphasizes the same point concerning our insistence on surveying and criticizing our forms of life: "When one does step back and ask... 'Why do we think that our moral (mathematical) beliefs are true?', this need not be interpreted as a fundamentally illegitimate request to adopt an external standpoint, a non-human perspective" (p.80). 172 Chapter three, third section.

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common level of rationality which is not distinctive to any particular language. This common core "is based upon an understanding of the language, but does not involve anything that has to be learned in learning that language rather than any other" (RE, p.261). In other words, if we acknowledge the existence of a general, human form of life, which is manifested by any language whatsoever, there is no need for us to step outside it and describe our practices from an external point which is independent of these practices. 173 Yet it is precisely this shared form of life which enables us to generalize our theories up to a certain level, and to criticize particular practices on its basis, without thereby suggesting the existence of criteria which transcend our own capabilities. I shall return to this point shortly. Such a reply to McDowell could perhaps satisfy him, were his sole motivation the desire for 'modesty', i.e. for a description "from within". However, this is obviously not the case. For McDowell's objection to antirealism and to non-cognitivism alike springs from two deeper sources, namely his insistence on giving an account of our practices in terms of 'truth' and 'facts', and his rejection of what he sees as the 18th century's heritage. Let us examine first latter source of McDowell's views. The legacy of the Enlightenment is, according to him, the "tendency to objectify not only nature but also the human subject" (1987, p.74). Such an objectification is manifested in divorcing content from belief and behaviour, in a way that yields either behaviourism or psychologism. For if we ignore the fact that content is absorbed in whatever we do, and is hence inseparable from it, we get a "mechanical" view of man; 174 but our wish to avoid this "mechanical" view,

173 Such a "neutral" framework is discussed by Taylor (1981, esp. p.209), and Lear (1982 and 1983, esp. sec.5). 174 The "mechanical" view is linked to the picture of "rules as rails", allegedly adopted by the positions in question. It is such an interpretation of moral anti-realism which drives Platts to the accusation quoted above. Compare the following claims McDowell raises against noncognitivism and against Dummett's position concerning meaning theories: "This amounts to the assumption that a moral stance can be captured in a set of externally formulable principles - principles such that there could in principle be a mechanical (non-comprehending) application of them which would duplicate the actions of someone who puts the moral stance into practice" (1981, p. 156); "The involvement of mind in meaningful speech is explicitly recognized only when we describe utterances in terms of content - in terms of thought expressed. How, then, can a description of the practice of speaking a language 'as from outside' content succeed in registering the role of mind?" (1987, p.65). These claims can make sense only if McDowell also adopts the Davidsonian assumption that intention is prior to convention in any account of meaning and understanding. (And indeed a similar

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while remaining faithful to the Enlightenment distinction, leads us necessarily to admit the "external point" discussed above, thus admitting a detached and prior 'mental language'. For "if one adopts an essentially behaviouristic conception of language use... then one will find, however resolute one's antipsychologistic intentions, that one cannot locate the mental aspect of speech other than behind linguistic behaviour" (1987, p.69f). In the realm of ethics the same traditional ideas are expressed by insisting on "a strict separation between cognitive capacities and their exercise, on the one hand, and what eighteenth-century writers would classify as passions or sentiments, on the other" (1981, p.143). In other words, what McDowell sees as the essence of the Enlightenment heritage are two fundamental distinctions: that between the content of a belief and the semantic value the community attaches to it, and that between what are usually called 'fact' and 'value'. This line of thought finds its natural home within the views expounded extensively by Rorty. Rorty urges us to abandon a larger series of distinctions belonging to the Enlightenment heritage: those between analytic and synthetic, reasons and causes, empirical and conceptual, fact and value, necessary and contingent, subjective and objective, and (following Davidson) the distinction between scheme

and

content. 175 These

distinctions,

and

not the

'full-blooded'

approach to meaning (which now seems only derivative), are responsible for the adherence to an "external" standpoint. However, a renunciation of these distinctions cannot be accepted by the linguistic Kantian. The deficiencies he finds in the philosophical ideas of the 18th century concern, rather, their vagueness (i.e. their emphasis on such opaque, or even unintelligible notions as 'intuition'), their disregard of the primacy of language over thought, and the representational ist conception embedded in such a position. These ideas, the linguistic Kantian maintains, have to be superseded by an appeal to the fundamental linguistic categories and grammatical propositions. Thus, although he agrees with most of the conclusions arrived at by both Brouwer (in the philosophy of mathematics) and Moore (in ethics), the linguistic Kantian defies their adherence

to

intuition as founding those conclusions. In the case of Moore's intuitionism

theme can be found in Davidson 1990, p.310.) 175 Most of these distinctions are indeed rejected by Davidson. See, e.g. his article "Actions, Reasons and Causes" (1963), reprinted in his 1982 collection.

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this means that he agrees with the gist of the following affirmation but not with its specific formulation: "Every one does in fact understand the question 'Is this good?'. When he thinks of it, his state of mind is different from what it would be, were he asked 'Is this pleasant, or desired, or approved?'. It has a distinct meaning for him, even though he may not recognize in what respect it is distinct" (1903, p. 17, my emphasis). It is not a distinctive state of mind which explains the uniqueness of the moral discourse, though; it is simply the grammar of that discourse, which determines that no account in terms of pleasure, desire or an empirical approval may convey the meaning of the statement 'This is good'. Thus one of the main components of Enlightenment thought which has to remain intact is the insistence on the above distinctions, reformulated as components of a coherent theory of meaning. We have seen all along that the anti-realist theory of meaning is committed to the distinction (expressed in Wittgensteinian terms) between criteria and symptoms. We may now add that one consequence of this fundamental distinction is that a grammatical distinction should be kept between the ethical discourse and other linguistic practices, such as the scientific one.176 Moreover, from a linguistic Kantian perspective it seems obvious that it is the wish to abolish these distinctions which leads directly to psychologism! For he sees the rejection of psychologism not only, as McDowell contends, as "the view that senses of utterances are not hidden behind them, but lie open to view" (1987, p.69). Rather, he accepts this Wittgensteinian view only as supplementary to the previously adopted Fregean requirement "always to separate sharply the psychological from the logical"; anti-psychologism, therefore, is the view which highlights the independence of the grammatical from the psychological (or otherwise empirical), of reasons from causes, and, in general, of philosophical explanations from scientific ones. The insistence upon these distinctions is linked to a rejection of the source of McDowell's 'modesty': the assumption that the desired theory of meaning should be formulated with 'truth' and 'fact' as its basic notions. According to his updated, modest theory of meaning, "the truth-condition of a sentence (its content) is audible or visible - to those who understand the language" (1987, p.70). When truth is no more conceived as transcendent, the status of

176 See Wittgenstein's LE, as well as Williams 1984 and Rundle 1993.

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'facts' changes accordingly. Facts are what we take to be true, and since we take some moral judgements to be true, there is no reason to avoid calling them moral facts. On the contrary: having abolished the distinction between reasons and causes, this terminology is indeed inevitable. The result is, therefore, a new and milder version of cognitivism, which captures one crucial component of the older empiricist version, viz. the contention that "the method of ethics is psychological", as Schlick aptly put it.177 "For, without doubt, the discovery of the motives and laws of any kind of behavior, and therefore of moral behavior, is a purely psychological affair" (ibid). The principal merit of such an understanding, Schlick contends, is that it guards us "from the Kantian formulation of the problem and from post-Kantian philosophy of value" (ibid). Our linguistic Kantian, however, has no interest in being guarded from the Kantian formulation. On the contrary, it is Schlick's - and McDowell's - attitude which seems to him to be awkward. For, he claims, even the least observant of language users would testify that the grammar of the moral discourse is essentially different from that of factual, empirical propositions. Is the linguistic Kantian a non-cognitivist, then? The answer to this is no, for he indeed denies the status of 'facts' to moral judgements, but he also rejects the non-cognitivist's defence of this denial. According to the latter, moral judgements cannot be regarded as genuine propositions at all, since they are deprived of sense. Rather, they must be conceived as a kind of 'force', attached to the factual statements: "In so far as they are not scientific, they are not in the literal sense significant, but are simply expressions of emotion which can be neither true nor false" (Ayer 1936, p. 136); "It is as if I had said, "You stole that money", in a peculiar tone of horror, or written it with the addition of some special exclamation marks" (ibid, p. 142). The linguistic Kantian completely agrees with the cognitivist claim that we should not regard ethical statements as "beyond significant language". 178 He does not conceive of them as unjustifiable expressions of emotion. Rather, by formulating his account of meaning not in terms of truth-conditions at all, but in terms of justification, the linguistic Kantian defends the "fact/value" distinction by adhering to the grammatical differences between the procedures

177 The quote is from chapter I of his Problems of Ethics, 1939, reprinted in Ayer 1959, p.263. 178 As in Wittgenstein's LE.

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of empirical (or better, as in Williams 1984, scientific) facts,

on the one hand, and those of moral judgements on the other. Adopting a justificationist meaning theory hence frees us of the cognitivism/noncognitivism dilemma. It entails a repudiation of both parties in this dispute, by changing its terms; for it is only against the background of truth-conditional theories of truth that it remains meaningful at all.

8.2 Objectivity and the rejection of bivalence We have seen how certain components of an anti-realist meaning theory find their counterparts in relevance to the analysis of the ethical discourse. We have mentioned the justificationist basis and the fundamental distinction between the logical and the psychological. I wish now to address another component of linguistic Kantianism: the rejection of bivalence.

Having

discussed the matter in the context of the mathematical discourse, it seems most convenient to treat the present issue by examining the similarities and differences between ethics and mathematics. A comparison between the mathematical and the ethical is often drawn. As far as I know, it was David Wiggins who first raised the idea of comparing the two within the context of a discussion of modern versions of cognitivism and non-cognitivism. His motivation was to ensure the possibility of objectivity in ethics, assuming that an 'external' authority has to be avoided. Wiggins rightfully notes that objectivity in such terms is ensured for mathematics by Wittgenstein's and the intuitionists' ideas. These ideas introduce a description "of how a continuing cumulative process of making or constructing can amount to the creation of a shared form of life that is constitutive of rationality itself'. (1976, p.l 58). Now since "one cannot get more out of the enterprise of making than one has in one way or another put there", and since "at any given moment one will have put less than everything into it", we get the inevitable following result: "However many determinations have been made, we never have a reason to think we have reached a point where no more decisions or determinations will be needed. No general or unrestricted affirmation is possible of the law of excluded middle" (p. 159), in ethics exactly as in mathematics.

180

Objectivity and the rejection of bivalence The only problem I find with Wiggins' proposal is that it remains

completely on a programmatic level. In fact, almost nothing more is said about it. I therefore wish to add a few more details to the core suggested by Wiggins. What seems to be the most striking similarity between ethics and mathematics is their dissimilarity to the empirical sciences: neither attempts to provide us with information. 179 However, what this amounts to remains undecided. Lear, for example, emphasizes the applicability of mathematics to the physical world, which has no correlative in the case of ethics. He explains this applicability by regarding mathematics as an abstraction from experience. "For example, a number η is related to other numbers in ways that are intimately linked to disjoint sets of various cardinality. The union of two disjoint sets of durable physical objects, one seven-membered, one fivemembered, is usually a twelve-membered set, and the arithmetical truth '7 + 5 = 12' reflects this fact" (1983, p.84). On the other hand, there is nothing which even remotely resembles such an abstraction in the ethical case. The conclusion drawn by Lear is that the source of the shared dissimilarity to an empirical enquiry is different in the case of mathematics and in that of ethics. This source explains the objectivity of mathematics, but therefore the objectivity of ethics cannot be defended by comparing it to mathematics. On the contrary, the mathematical case just stresses the necessary divergence of ethical judgements. As we have seen earlier, such a conception of mathematics cannot be adopted from a linguistic Kantian perspective - it was discredited already by Frege. 180 Mathematics, rather than reflecting an empirical fact such as the above, provides us with the means to assert it. Equipped with the mathematical language, we master the concepts needed to talk about union of sets of durable physical objects. This precisely is the essence of the linguistic component of linguistic Kantianism: "Do you believe that you can shew what fact is meant by, e.g., pointing to it with your finger?... Mathematics - I want

179 In the regular sense of the term, i.e. information "about a reality which exists independently of our observations and is unaffected by them" (LBM, p. 181). 180 See Frege, 1950, sections l-III passim, but esp. ## 7,8,23,29-34. Lear indeed mentions that "since Frege, any philosophy of mathematics that can be labelled 'abstractionist' has been in bad repute" (ibid), but he believes that replacing 'induction from experience' by 'abstraction from experience' solves the problem. I cannot see why, esp. in the light of the above mentioned arguments of Frege.

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to say - teaches you, not just the answer to a question, but a whole languagegame with questions and answers" (RFM, VII-18). When the applicability of mathematics is seen in this light, we regain the possibility of assuming a generally shared form of life, and hence the existence of some linguistic features which do not depend on any particular language - features which are constitutive of rationality itself and are manifested by any language. Such a conception of mathematics is undoubtedly the one Wiggins has in mind, although he does not clearly anchor it to a definite theory of meaning. Thus, seen from the perspective of linguistic Kantianism, Lear's objection to the comparison between mathematics and ethics seems to collapse. Ethics, too, may be regarded as providing us with a network of linguistic tools for asserting facts about "the physical world" which will be "intimately linked" to them; it, too, introduces "a whole language-game, with questions and answers". Some general prescriptive principles constitute a shared 'thin layer'; the rest of the moral rules can be justified on their basis; and their applications to particular states of affairs are the corollaries of "applied mathematics". I do not suggest that we carry on with the comparison: the internal structures of the two areas of discourse are, to be sure, extremely different from each other. Nevertheless, the comparison we did succeed in drawing helps us understand the source of the divergence between empirical statements, on the one hand, and mathematical and ethical statements, on the other; it thus enables us to see how we can conceive of a certain level of objectivity of ethical statements without adhering to an external source. As Wiggins rightly notes, a direct consequence of this conception is the rejection of bivalence. Meaning is conferred on ethical statements by a process of justification, which is directed towards a shared set of principles, constitutive of the discourse (or language-game). It is crucial for our picture that this constitutive set should be minimal, and that it should leave room for "an artifact or construct or projection - something as it were invented" ( 1976, p. 158). This does not mean that the ethical statement is vague or senseless. What it means is this: part of the statements that cannot be either justified or falsified on the basis of the shared core may be constitutive of a particular

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Objectivity and the rejection of bivalence

extension of it;181 another part may get its meaning from outside the ethical discourse altogether. The statements in this latter category may be seen, on reflection, as deserving psychological, sociological or anthropological sources of justification, in which case they are revealed as empirical statements, whose aim is to describe and not to prescribe.182 Now on such a view, "however many determinations have been made, we never have a reason to think we have reached a point where no more decisions or determinations will be needed" (ibid, p. 159), since the minimal core is, ex hypothesis, insufficient for this purpose, and the remaining projection is regarded as immanently "open"; it is hence essential to deny that for every morally evaluative proposition there is a procedure which connects it with the shared premises, in a way that either justifies or falsifies it. A similar idea is expressed also by Ronald Dworkin. He stresses the importance of a shared basis for moral evaluations, for the participants in the procedure of constructive interpretation of a practice: "They must all 'speak the same language' in both senses of that phrase" (1986, p.64). However, "this similarity of interests and convictions need hold only to a point: it must be sufficiently dense to permit genuine disagreement, but not so dense that disagreement cannot break out" (ibid). Wiggins' and Dworkin's analyses show us that the realist claim, that antirealism entails moral relativism, is by no means justified. For as in the mathematical case, the anti-realist conception of meaning and rule following, depending on a shared 'human form of life', is basically objectivist. In Dummett's terminology we may say that moral rules turn out to be indefinitely extendible, in their ongoing interpretation; but their extension is not arbitrary - it coheres with what has previously been determined as the correct application of a certain rule, and though the decision that this, indeed, is the

181 They are linked to the shared core by constituting an interpretation of it. Interpretation is always context-dependent, hence they are less 'objective' than the general principles in the shared core. 182 An excellent example is given by Lear. A report made by Herodotus describes a confrontation between the Greeks and a certain Indian tribe: whereas the Greeks used to burn the dead bodies of their parents, the Indians used to eat them, and each side thought the others' conduct unbearable. This confrontation might be interpreted as a moral one; after all, it concerns 'right conduct'. However, says Lear, it is not. Not everything that is right, or wrong, is so from the ethical point of view; for like the Greeks, "we may find [the Indian] behaviour disgusting, but we do not think it wrong, in the sense that they ought to change it. Our ultimate judgement of them is aesthetic, not moral" (p.92). Our evaluation has nothing to do with what is constitutive of rationality.

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right extension depends on society, it does not depend on any particular member of this society. It demands a general approval. The procedure is clearly described for the linguistic case in LBM: "An individual may draw consequences; he cannot, by himself, determine what they should be... Likewise, neither the common judgement nor even the established practice is in all cases decisive, for they may be objective criteria before which they stand for assessment. But the chain of criteria and principles must come to an end here, too... When the chain terminates, the individual stands to be judged only by his peers, the general accord of the society from which he originally learned to handle words and symbols" (p. 106). Dummett himself hints that this is indeed his conception of the appropriate theory of meaning for the ethical discourse. Like Wiggins and Dworkin, he notes that "there is such a variety of relevant factors that it is impossible to lay down a priori rules that would decide each case in advance" (ECP, p.810). This amounts, as we have just seen, to a rejection of bivalence. How does our conclusion harmonize, then, with Dummett's contention that "in ethics, the law of excluded middle must hold" (NW, p.34)? It does, when we add, with Dummett, the following reservation: "at least, it must hold for an agent engaged in deciding what to do, if not for someone judging actions already taken by others. In a concrete situation, a given course of action must be evaluated either as morally permissible or as morally impermissible" (ibid). Dummett is right in maintaining that "when the issue is a moral one... we cannot allow that the line is blurred, that an action may with equal justice be said to be wrong or not to be wrong... It is in specific instances that the law of excluded middle applies; it is far less clear that there must be some formulation detailed enough to decide every instance in advance" (p.35). The distinction Dummett makes is important, not only because

it

demarcates the range of application of bivalence, but, moreover, since it distinguishes between the descriptive and the legislative roles of the moral agent. The same point is made by Dworkin: "[E]ach of the participants in a social practice must distinguish between trying to decide what other members of his community think the practice requires and trying to decide, for himself, what it really requires" (1986, p.64). In the evaluative, descriptive respect, it is essential that we keep loose ends, and refrain from applying the principle of bivalence; as legislators, we cannot avoid it. It is only the dialectical

184

Objectivity and the rejection of bivalence

relation between both these roles which makes the application of the antirealist conception of rule-following to the normative discourse possible at all.

8.3 Systematization

and criticism

That the idea of objectivity, or a shared from of life, does not necessarily involve an external viewpoint is exemplified very clearly in Davidson's classical article "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme". Davidson shows that relativist talk of "different conceptual schemes" is incoherent, since "we could not be in a position to judge that others had concepts or beliefs radically different from our own" (1984, p. 197). But the argument supporting this conclusion is not "externalist"; rather it is based on the belief that our conception of 'reality' cannot be independent, or separated from our other concepts, and that it is always "interpreted". This claim is, of course, endorsed by linguistic Kantianism as well.183 Acknowledging such a common coordinate system may lead us into believing that it frees us from further investigation. This is how Paul Johnston, interpreting the later Wittgenstein's ideas, conceives of the matter. Johnston believes that since it is a grammatical feature of the ethical discourse that any moral judgement manifests a claim for generality, we must not look for further justifications: "With respect to moral judgements there is no such thing as evidence or proof' (1989, p. 144). This approach may indeed be Wittgensteinian; but it is certainly not linguistic Kantian. From a Kantian perspective, representing faithfully the grammar of the ethical language game

183 Davidson's argument involves also his view that understanding a language is essentially an act of interpretation - a position strongly objected by linguistic Kantians. It is this position which drives Davidson to the end his essay with the following declaration: "It would be... wrong to announce the glorious news that all mankind - all speakers of language, at least share a common scheme and ontology. For if we cannot intelligibly say that schemes are different, neither can we intelligibly say that they are one" (1984, p. 198). I think that it is still possible to criticize relativism on the above basis, without relinquishing the optimistic presumption that it is intelligible to speak of a "neutral ground, or a common coordinate system" (ibid). A theory of meaning which is based on justification rather on truth-conditions, legitimizes an appeal to non-linguistic forms of life, and gives primacy to linguistic conventions rather than to the users idiolects - in short, a linguistic Kantian theory of meaning - keeps the argument concerning relativism intact, but remains optimist concerning the idea of a 'thin layer' of rationality - one that is founded on a shared human form of life, and manifested by common practices - linguistic and otherwise.

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does not consist only in noting its dissimilarity to any empirical inquiry; it also consists in understanding the different costumes that procedures of justification wear in ethics, and not in denying their existence in toto. Johnston's mistake concerning the character of moral judgements results from identifying (or at least, closely connecting) moral and religious beliefs. In both cases, he argues, there is a constitutive claim for objectivity, while justification is senseless. Thus ethics is seen as a matter of pure faith. However, from a linguistic Kantian perspective, wherever systematization is possible, it is mandatory; in other words, wherever we may replace faith with a detailed account of our procedures of justifications, we must do so. Optimism, in the sense used all over this book, consists precisely of this conviction. Only systematization can provide us with a clear view of the described practice, thus enabling us to criticize it by revealing its inconsistencies and to demand its revision. On this basis, morality should be clearly demarcated from faith. Our conception of justice "demands that we act on principle rather than on faith... [AJrticulated

consistency,

decisions

in

accordance with a program that can be made public and followed until changed, is essential to any conception of justice" (Dworkin 1977, p.l62f.). Otherwise, no interpretation could claim superiority over its rivals (or predecessors), hence there would be no reason for criticism and revision. As with the systematic theory of meaning, the interpretation depends solely on the practitioners, but to be conceived as a rational interpreter, the practitioner has to be conscious of his considerations, even if he cannot actually state them. "Very few of us self-consciously interpret this history the way I imagined... But we each - some more reflectively than others - form a sense of justice that is an interpretation nonetheless, and some of us even revise our interpretation from time to time... [Political philosophers can] try to capture the plateau from which arguments about justice largely proceed, and try to describe this in some abstract proposition taken to define the 'concept' of justice for their community, so that arguments over justice can be understood as arguments about the best conception of that concept" (Dworkin 1986, p.74). That this is an application of a justificationist theory of meaning to a moral concept should be obvious.

186

Systematization and criticism 8.4 Dummett's

positions

As I have already noted, Dummett has not expressed his meta-ethical views directly. He has often expressed certain specific moral convictions, but he never considered publicly the connection between them and the other - more "professional" - components of his worldview.184 Such a connection does exist, though. My aim in this last section is to point to a few examples. Examining the semantical details of linguistic Kantianism, we noted that Dummett's rejection of holism is based, eventually, on his optimistic and adventurous assumptions. Here is a typical reminder of such form of argumentation: "Frege's model of language... represents an ideal... just because its interconnections are minimal: there are just as many as needed to confer on our sentences the use to which we want to put them... and no more... Quine's model, on the other hand, welcomes overdetermination as a virtue: it allows for a change only at the cost of making the principles which govern change undecipherable. At the worst, it is irremediably conservative, because there can be no base from which to criticize whatever is generally accepted... At the best, it is simply defeatist..." (FPL, p.626f.). The insistence on revealing a 'thin layer' of rationality, which is relatively immune to criticism and is not influenced by empirical changes, is explained by our will "to introduce enough rigidity at critical points to serve our present purposes in evaluating, revising, or simply conferring clarity on what we say" (ibid). This is, as we have seen all along, the motivation underlying the dogmatic acceptance of the criteria/symptoms distinction. The same insistence reappears in the normative discourse, motivating the anti-realist's rejection of moral cognitivism. The latter view cannot be disconnected from a version of holism, regarding ethical judgements as, au fond, empirical, and blurring the contrast between them and psychological, sociological and anthropological judgements. Renouncing such a view, Dummett introduces certain critical points which should be regarded as rigid, i.e. as constituting some of the criteria of any moral theory.

184 Indeed, he confesses in an interview: "I have been very bad at making those connections... Obviously these are things one can talk about as a philosopher, but since I've worked in the more abstract parts of the subject, I've never got anywhere near that point" (Co, p.3).

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One such point is the following principle: "Killing defenceless people who have been convicted of no crime is always and everywhere bad" (CWO, p.21). This is not an empirical - sociological or anthropological - remark; it is an important part of what morality is all about. "It needs no argument, for example, to show that it is monstrously wicked to exterminate millions of people in gas chambers. If someone says that it is monstrously wicked, you do not have to ask on what ethical theory he bases his conclusion, or to examine the steps by which he arrived at it. No ethical theory can stand in judgement upon so fundamental a delivery of moral intuition; it stands in judgement upon the theory, for any theory that renders such an assessment doubtful is thereby shown to be erroneous" (MD, p. 114). This contention should not be confused with Johnston's position. It does not even amount to claiming that the above principle should be seen as an unfounded foundation an axiom - for the rationally reconstructed moral theory. There, it may be presented as derivative. However, if the theory cannot yield this principle at all, either as axiom or theorem, then we should reject the theory instead of relinquishing the principle. Another rigid point concerns the obligation to treat our fellow humans "as equals and with respect". Its triviality disappears when we consider its negative corollary, asserting that "no-one... is entitled to irrational hatred, contempt, fear or prejudice directed against whole groups of people... Racial prejudice is highly resistant to argument: that is due., to its being irrational" (Im, p.5). An áir of triviality accompanies these examples. Indeed, Kant has been rightly blamed for enunciating trivial moral principles, from which no informative consequence may follow. It is hence important to understand the status of these "rigid points". A non-Platonic account of morality has to justify the rigidity it confers on certain points, i.e. on what it takes as belonging to our thin layer of rationality, by an appeal to a wide agreement about them in society. Now by analyzing the relevant details of a particular case, and by relying on the special status of these principles as constituting rationality, we may show how they are disobeyed by a certain view or act. All of Dummett's writings in ethics follow the same pattern, without a single exception: they are founded on some agreed version of such rigid point, constitutive of the ethical discourse; and then go on to show how it is defied in the particular case analyzed. Thus the discussion of the duty of the West

Dummett's positions

188

to return certain works of art to their places of origin is based upon the respect for the diversity of human culture and the pluralistic attitude towards usually suspect feelings like local patriotism;185 the opposition to a policy of deterrence is connected with the unconditional dismissal of terrorism, and the analysis of the government's role in endorsing racism counts on accepting the obvious principle that racism is inhumane. The emphasis on the role of society in establishing the basic criteria may raise the suspicion that a conservative result is unavoidable here, for the correctness of our moral decisions seems to depend too much on the concepts and the views of the majority, or simply on ongoing practice. There is no greater distortion of the linguistic Kantian approach than this, though. For only the most fundamental assumptions, the rigid points, depend upon social accord. The other statements are judged by examining their justifications via these basic criteria. As in the general theory of meaning, the adventurousness hinges upon an optimist assumption. By adhering to a "belief that is not founded",186 we may found other beliefs, and justify our claims against the majority views. This may raise an opposite suspicion of conservatism, since rigid points are not enough sensitive to pragmatic considerations, inspired by changes in Zeitgeist. However, from a linguistic Kantian perspective, it is this pragmatic attitude which guarantees conservatism, taken to be the position which accept as correct, without reflection, every ongoing practice, or the prominent concepts and views of the majority. The linguistic Kantian rejection of such attitude is concisely outlined by Keynes (1926, I): "I do not know which makes a man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past." Two examples for an argument critical of widely received ideas are found in Dummett's writings. The first concerns the inhumanity of racism: "Even if 80% of the country came to think that racial intermarriage was bad in itself, there would remain a sense in which it just does not need arguing that there is nothing wrong with it; only someone whose outlook on the world has become warped by irrational fantasies can think otherwise, even if most

185 This pluralism dictates Dummett's desire that the thin layer would, indeed, be thin, and its interconnections minimal ("just as many as needed to confer on our sentences the use to which we want to put them... and no more..."). 186 OC, #253.

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189

people's outlook were to become warped in this way" (Im, p.2). We see again how an anchored principle serves as a criterion for other judgements. The second example concerns the potential clash between scientific theories and philosophical ideas. The revision which Dummett urges in this context is of our common belief that "no-one has the right to oppose scientific theories on any but strictly scientific grounds and that all such objections may be dismissed without consideration" (ORU, p.288). In the present context I am concerned only with one strand of Dummett's argument. Although we may still conceive of science as a rational enterprise par excellence, we cannot deduce that every scientist is motivated solely by rational considerations. Scientists are "very far from being free of... prejudices, adopted in response to prevailing opinion in society at large..." (p.290). This claim, although not yet widely adopted, is acknowledged by many philosophers, especially as a result of Kuhn's ideas. However, Dummett's argument is not founded on a Kuhnian basis.187 The latter does not enable one to argue against the truth of some scientific theories on a moral basis - but it is precisely this which Dummett is interested in doing: when certain scientific results contradict our moral criteria, we are entitled - or better, demanded to set them aside without further examination (ibid, p.298).188 Now although every decent person would agree with Dummett on both these examples, a coherent defence of their claim is sensible only in the presence of the distinctions abolished by the moral cognitivist in particular, and the pragmatist way of thinking in general. For only by assuming a privileged189

set of "rigid points", independent of any empirical evidence,

can we resist both the majority views and what might be taken as scientific results. Only thus can we separate an empirical account of causes (a sociological explanation of the dominating racist climate in South Africa, for example), from a systematic conceptual account of reasons. A word of warning is due here. "What seems at first sight obvious is often false" (VP, p.298), hence we should not entreat our unfounded 'thin

187 It cannot be so founded, since Kuhn's proposal clearly involves incommensurability schemes,

and the eradication

of some of the distinctions

most crucial

of

for linguistic

Kantianism. 188 As in any scientific theory backing racist ideas. See, e.g., Dummett's detailed examination of the theory of IQ, in his ORU, pp.293-8. 189 Vis-a-vis Rorty.

190

Dummett's positions

layer' maxims too hastily. This is why, where possible, a systematic approach is required, and this is where the optimistic basis makes room for an adventurous attitude. Here we may recognise that we have come full circle to where this book started. There is one general moral to this chapter, and it is that we are not necessarily facing the end of philosophy, as one would conclude from current, mostly pragmatist, treatment of the issue. McDowell, e.g., admits reaching the sad conclusion that "perhaps finding out how to stop being tempted by the picture of the external standpoint would be the discovery that enables one to stop doing philosophy when one wants to" (1981, p. 160, n.10). Rorty sounds much more cheerful and decisive when he suggests that we set aside "the Kantian 'grid'", and with it the whole idea of systematic philosophy (1980, p.364). However, we have seen that the "solid foundation" of philosophy is not to be removed so easily as naive, empiricist, positivist, representationalist or externalist. The point of analytical philosophy is that moral philosophy is not sharply separable from the philosophy of language, and this means that there must be a close connection between the way our theory of meaning is built and our meta-ethical formulations. In particular, a justificationist theory of meaning may be used to emphasize the rationality of the normative discourse: detaching the truth of moral judgements from our means of justification, and assigning to them the status of pragmatically interpreted 'facts' is less cogent here than anywhere else.

9 Epilogue Throughout my reflections upon the themes of this book I found myself oscillating between two mottoes. The first is taken from Collingwood's book on the British art critic John Ruskin: When I speak of a man's philosophy, I mean something of this sort. I see a man living a long and busy life; I see him doing a large number of different things, or writing a large number of different books. And I ask myself, do these actions, or these books, hang together? Is there any central thread on which they are all strung? Is there any reason why the man who wrote this book should have gone on to write that one, or is it pure chance? Is there anything like a central purpose, or a consistent point of view, running through all the man's work? (Ruskin's Philosophy) Incidentally, in exactly the same year in which Collingwood wrote these words, Virginia Woolf wrote the following ones: Nobody sees any one as he is... They see a whole - they see all sorts of things -they see themselves... It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done... (Jacob's Room) The mottoes are conflicting: while the first certainly favours undertaking a project like the one I undertook, the second sounds very discouraging about its chances of success. And I ask myself, which of the two is more justified in the present context? Have, I succeeded in "summing up" Dummett's perspective or have I only collected a number of hints, portraying - indeed myself? The most significant difference between the way I portrayed Dummett's views and the way he himself would have done it is undoubtedly that Dummett would not have presented his positions as unified, or as different facets of one perspective. On some occasions he has emphasized his

192

Epilogue

uncertainty as to which side in the realism/anti-realism debate is right;190 in his opinion, his contribution to philosophy lies in introducing this distinction, as a general pattern for rephrasing and examining philosophical positions, rather than in offering a particular and articulate philosophical position. Such an evaluation of his own contribution to contemporary philosophy not only underrates Dummett's achievement, but moreover, leads to a great distortion. In the second chapter I quoted Dummett's disapproval of those who represent Frege's achievements as merely methodological. I argued there that this disapproval is justified, but added a reservation: Frege's genuine contribution to philosophy can be seen as more than methodological mainly after Dummett's own examination of its implications. By this I do not mean to suggest that it was not until Dummett's interpretation of Frege that we properly understood the letter's philosophy. Rather, I mean that Dummett's own philosophy reveals the hidden implications of Frege's revolution, unrecognized by Frege himself. It does this precisely by deriving concrete philosophical conclusions - over and above the realism/anti-realism distinction - from Frege's presumable "merely methodological" revolution. Whereas Frege acknowledged his debt to Kant, he did not remain loyal to Kant's most fundamental contribution: the Copernican revolution. His insistence on adhering to classical logic prevented him from embedding full-blooded Kantianism in his philosophy. However, his own major contribution - the linguistic turn - cannot be appreciated, save by those who accept Kantianism as prerequisite: only when the reduction of metaphysics to epistemology is acknowledged, there is sense in "epistemologizing" logic and semantics. This I take to be the lesson Dummett teaches us; and it is therefore much more than a proposal for a better agenda. The key to recognising this lies in Frege's three methodological dicta, which conclude his introduction to the Grundlagen. These inter-connected principles lay the basis for the whole tradition of analytical philosophy. However, close scrutiny reveals that they pave the way to Dummett's global anti-realism, or - in my favoured terminology - linguistic Kantianism; hence the equivalence between these notions and analytical philosophy in general. By way of recapitulating Dummett's views I wish to show their close connection to Frege's dicta.

190 Most notably in his recent Valedictory Lecture. See SL, esp. p.472f. and p.478.

Epilogue

193

The first principle professes the irreducibility of philosophy, and embodies an element of faith, on which I shall elaborate later. By sharply separating the psychological from the logical, the subjective from the objective, Frege in fact urged us to accept the distinction between necessary and contingent, or conceptual and empirical.191 He thus not only combatted the psychologism of his day, but actually laid the grounds for rejecting future tendencies towards reducing philosophy to other disciplines, such as biology, history, anthropology, sociology and literature. His principle thus represents not only anti-psychologism but also anti-scientism in general. As we saw in the previous chapter, an important application of this principle for ethics repudiates modern versions of cognitivism, founded on an intentional blurring of the line between the ethical and the scientific, or factual, discourse. Proponents of the Fregean dictum will emphasize, rather, the substantial difference between the forms of justification to be applied to these types of discourse. Dummett explicated the Fregean idea by showing that the only way to defend the dictum is by repudiating holism. This means that sense should be kept apart from semantical value, in a way which discerns for every part of discourse an element constitutive of it, independently of the totality of our theories. An excellent example of such an independence was given by Wittgenstein, concerning our ability to assert that it is raining - an ability which is independent of what the barometer shows. The example is suitable since it points, en passant, to the fact that our definitions are not purely verbal: they involve sense-impressions and, indeed, "reality", or the "external world" itself. This is the reason for Dummett's insistence on the requirement that a theory of meaning should be "full-blooded" and not "modest", i.e. that it should link language to our non-linguistic abilities, to provide us with a truly explanatory, non-circular understanding of our concepts.192 Needless to say, keeping the criteria/symptoms distinction renders meaning conventio-

191 See, e.g., 1950, # 14 and # 2 passim, but esp.: "When a proposition is called a posteriori or analytic in my sense, this is not a judgement about the conditions, psychological, physiological and physical, which have made it possible to form the content of the proposition in your consciousness;... rather, it is a judgement about the ultimate ground upon which rests the justification for holding it to be true." 192 The direct connection between Frege's first dictum and the rejection of "modesty" is pointed out by Dummett in LBM, p. 111.

194

Epilogue

nal. 193 This means that meanings are constituted by social practice, and that the latter serves as a principal tool for analyzing meaning. Hence convention (in this sense) is not secondary to particular people's intentions, and is certainly not redundant, as Davidson would have it. The link with Frege's first dictum is obvious: only when meaning is seen as conventional, can it avoid adherence to the psychological, or the private: meanings of words should be explained in terms of the use made of them by the linguistic community, and not in terms of private idiolects. Thus we see that certain important components of Dummett's conception of the theory of meaning are directly entailed by the anti-psychologist requirement. Dummett's position in the philosophy of mind represents, of course, another aspect of the same loyalty to this requirement. His rejection of cognitivist accounts of meaning serves as a good example: the objection to Chomsky's account of language does not pertain to it as a scientific (viz. psychological or neuro-physiological) theory; it has to do mainly with the conceptual error which results, in the worst case, in identifying such a theory with a philosophical explanation of what meaning is, and in the better case, in deriving philosophical conclusions from such a scientific enquiry. The rejection of holism does not at all amount to atomism, or even to its vaguer relative, molecularism. This is where we turn to Frege's second dictum, "never to ask for the meaning of a word in isolation, but only in the context of a proposition". Frege rightfully notes that an atomist theory of meaning is unavoidably mentalistic, and this is how he links the second dictum with the first. Dummett's proposal in this context is an organic theory of meaning, which confers meanings simultaneously to clusters of terms, but assumes a hierarchical structure in which these are organized. This idea is, of course,

closely

requirement,

connected

to the above

since the interconnections

mentioned

"full-bloodedness"

between the senses of certain

"peripheral" concepts are explained by our capability to discriminate between them. 194 However, Dummett goes even further than this in applying Frege's context principle. For it is here where the neglected Kantianism comes in. The desired theory of meaning should not only avoid holism, atomism, "modest"

193 As Wittgenstein indeed notes in the paragraphs where he discusses this distinction. (PI, #354-5) 194 See LBM, p.223.

Epilogue

195

ambitions and an idiolect-based explanation; it should first of all exhibit the unintelligibility of concepts whose truth-values are independent of our judgements. This anti-realist approach not only harmonizes with Frege's principles, but seems to be the only non-circular solution that consorts with them. 195 The anti-Kantian idea of an objective and independent world, adhered to by Frege as forming the realm of reference, requires a conception of truth independent of our means of recognizing it. However, such a conception contradicts Frege's basic motivation in his linguistic revolution. The emphasis on the primacy of language aims at avoiding mentalistic accounts of our concepts, since these are taken to be mystical; but what can be more mystical than concepts which transcend our intellectual abilities? In other words, unless Kantianism is presupposed, there is no way to render significant the idea of the priority of language over thought. Thus it is by taking seriously Frege's first and second dicta that Dummett eventually arrives at the core of his proposed theory of meaning - the analysis of meaning through our means of justification. What seems to emerge from the Fregean ideas, when these are set in a proper Kantian framework, is a general design for a unified set of views. Frege's third dictum reminds us to keep sight of the distinction between concept and object. Dummett sees no connection between this principle and the former two. 196 I, on the contrary, think that such a connection does exist, allowing for a slightly loose interpretation of the dictum, according to which it can be seen as expressing a central principle of Kantianism in the new terms of the linguistic turn. The third dictum thus emphasizes that grammar does not consist only of arbitrary definitions and stipulations. There are fixed categories, constitutive of rational thinking, which cannot be overthrown in any account of grammar. 197 Eventually, it is this principle

195 See, e.g., FPM, p. 16. 196 FPM, p.22. 197 This interpretation is the complete opposite of the one proposed by Diamond, esp. in "What Does a Concept Script Do?" in her 1992. 1 believe that Diamond's objection to take 'concept' and 'object' as strict linguistic categories (indeed, only in the context of a proposition) goes against the grain of Frege's own explanation of his principle: "|ljt is a mere illusion to suppose that a concept can be made an object without altering it" (1950, p.x). Moreover, it is unclear how, according to her interpretation, it is possible to see that "[f]rom this it follows that a widely-held formalist theory... is untenable." (ibid) It seems that quite the contrary is the case.

196

Epilogue

which enables the linguistic Kantian to hold the intuitionistic position in the philosophy of mathematics. For whereas he can combat the mathematical platonist by adhering to the first two dicta, thus using them for repudiating Frege's own ideas, he has to find a different tool for refuting the allegations coming from the opposite direction - that of the strict finitisi. Prima facie, the strict finitisi sounds like an enthusiastic anti-realist, applying the latter's principles even more adequately than he does. On second thought, though, it seems that the strict finitisi ignores Frege's third dictum, and does not keep the basic grammatical categories in view. What he misses is, indeed, the category which was better characterized by Wittgenstein as that of rules. While by object we refer to a closed totality, rules may - in principle - be applied indefinitely, thus enabling us always to find further members of the totality. The strict finitisi objects to the use of such words as 'always' and 'indefinitely', arguing that for us, as finite creatures, they are not intelligible. However, it is precisely here where he abandons Frege's dictum never to lose sight of the basic grammatical categories: as Aristotle already acknowledged, the mere existence of rules cannot be argued for or against - they simply are basic components of what seems to constitute our rationality, and their impact amounts precisely to our immediate and unquestionable grasp of the concept of unrealizable potential. Frege, of course, did not intend his third dictum to lead to intuitionist conclusions; however, as we have seen, such an attitude, framed as linguistic-Kantian, is the most plausible fulfilment of his three methodological constraints. On the other hand, intuitionism's initial home was heavily afflicted with mentalism. Only by replacing, within a Fregean framework, Frege's platonism with elements borrowed from Brouwer's intuitionism could Dummett, eventually, find a position in the philosophy of mathematics which is faithful to all three dicta. The last paragraph adheres, implicitly, to the idea that there exists a basic core which is constitutive of rationality; it is "the grammar of rationality", so to speak. Now a philosophical view which assumes such a fixed core of rationality is automatically regarded as representing a detached philosophy, denying any importance to historical factors. Indeed, this is the crux of Rorty's and McDowell's principal complaint against Dummett's philosophy." 8 Rating it among

'traditional'

philosophies, as a piece of En-

198 See Rorty 1982, p.xxixf. and 1989, p.3; McDowell 1987, p.75.

Epilogue

197

lightenment thinking, or even as 'platonic', such an interpretation magnifies certain components ofDummett's genuine position, while completely ignoring others. It misconstrues what seems to me the position's most interesting merit: that of blending a traditional (or 'Enlightenment', or even platonic) view of philosophy with a fresh outlook on the evolving nature of truth, objectivity and rationality. In this Dummett follows the Wittgensteinian ideas presented in On Certainty.199 Their novelty consists in taking the constitutive level of rationality to be much thinner and more dynamic than that acknowledged by Enlightenment thinkers: not everything which we - conditioned as we are by historical circumstances - take as belonging to this level, indeed constitutes it. Moreover, our own investigations may contribute to the development of its content, thus reshaping and constructing it. However, such a thin layer, establishing the bedrock of our beliefs, enables us to take seriously such notions as 'true' and 'just'. Thus approaching the problematic issue of rationality, Dummett may remain loyal to the fundamental ideas of the Enlightenment - mainly to its optimism, viz. to the belief in progress and in our ability to attain truth while deserting the realist (and naive) conceptions and assumptions of this epoch. Now if we view Dummett's perspective in this light, i.e. if we connect his approach to philosophy in general to the various components of his proposals for a better account of language, thought, and their relations, what we get is the core of a unified worldview. It is especially here where the term 'anti-realism' may mislead us. Regarding this combination of positions as merely an elaborated, or global, version of anti-realism misses the point, since anti-realism, at least according to Dummett's own terminology, is linked to a rejection of bivalence. However, we may find in Dummett's writings issues on which he expresses what may be taken straightforwardly as realist

199 It is interesting to note that the later Wittgenstein remained faithful to all three of Frege's dicta. A salient feature common to all his later writings is undoubtedly his loyalty to the criteria/symptoms distinction, and to the belief that a philosophical investigation should be confined to the former. Thus he demarcates the philosophical discourse sharply from the scientific ones, and on the same basis he separates the ethical discourse from the empirical. His loyalty to the context principle takes the form of Dummett's understanding of it, for Wittgenstein predated Dummett in understanding that the second dictum calls for replacing Frege's realism by Kant's anthropocentrism. In this sense, it is indeed Wittgenstein who first formulated the basic ideas of linguistic Kantianism. Frege's third dictum acquires a special significance in Wittgenstein's emphasis on the constitutive features of grammar and on the inevitability of bedrock beliefs.

198

Epilogue

attitudes, but which turn out, on second reflection, to consort with his general linguistic Kantian perspective. From this it follows that it is not bivalence in particular which is rejected by linguistic-Kantianism, but the more general conception of language as representing independent reality. The most interesting example of such an issue concerns the possibility in principle of attaining a complete description of reality. In his discussion of McTaggart's proof of the unreality of time, Dummett establishes a linkage between what seems to be an anti-realist conception of time and the conviction that there must be a complete description of reality. 200 Since, according

to this conviction,

there could be an

observer-independent

description of anything that is real, and since McTaggart convincingly shows that there could be no such description of time, then time is unreal. However, Dummett contraposes by proving - using semi-Kantian reasoning - that time cannot but be real, and hence that our belief in a complete description of reality is no more than a prejudice. Now which side in this dispute is the genuine anti-realist? Regarding global anti-realism as a series of local antirealist positions, we could be facing a dilemma: both sides seem to be appropriate contestants. However, taking anti-realism to denote a distinct perspective, viz. linguistic Kantianism, the dilemma evaporates: a linguistic Kantian cannot possibly regard a human-independent description of reality, and of time in particular, as intelligible. No description is conceivable as transcending human capacities of description - and being human means being immersed in time. Not surprisingly, the issue turns out to be a slightly different version of the realism/anti-realism debate about the past. It is worth recalling that we have not reached a decisive conclusion as to the exact formulation an anti-realist theory of the meaning that past-tensed sentences should adopt. Both of the proposed "pictures" seem a little flimsy: while the milder and more attractive one is redolent of realism, the more radical suggestion sounds virtually implausible, and resembles too much the strictfinitist position in the philosophy of mathematics. The linguistic Kantian has, therefore, to work out the details of the first picture, borrowing some of the insights of the second. However, the current lack of an articulate proposal does not shake the infrastructure of the anti-realist conception of the past. Having enough confidence in its foundations, we are merely called upon to

200 TOE, p.356 and p.370.

Epilogue

199

continue the investigation of its semantical implications in this problematic area. The discussion of the describability of reality has repercussions on the issue of vagueness as well. The question here is whether it is conceivable that the world itself, and not only our language, can be regarded as vague. Realists will give a negative answer, claiming that the source of vagueness lies in our laziness, and that we can, in principle, sharpen our predicates in such a way that would eliminate any vagueness. The linguistic Kantian, however, naturally regards this as a prejudice, equal to the one about the existence, in principle, of a complete description of reality. In this case, again, the realist answer may yield a non-bivalent semantic theory, since a statement containing vague expressions cannot be assumed to be determinately true or false; on the other hand, the position which endorses bivalence and dubbed by Dummett "realism about vague predicates" (IFP, p.440) is not realist at all! It springs from linguistic Kantian sources, precisely as does Dummett's equivalent constructive view of the application of mathematical analysis to physics, according to which the magnitude of any quantity is dependent upon our procedures of measurement, which may be indefinitely refined.201 My aim in mentioning these examples was not to object to Dummett's semantical characterization of the realism/anti-realism debate; it was rather to point to the fact that this debate, like any other, cannot be separated from a philosophical perspective, or a set of general assumptions, conferring unity to various specific positions. Dummett is right in claiming that it is hard to construct an a priori justification of the rejected prejudices; but it is equally hard to find such a justification of his own assumptions. This brings us back to my preface, and to one of the two mottoes I eventually chose for this book, taken from Wittgenstein's On Certainty. "At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded" (#253). Dummett's

perspective

comprises his interpretation of the terms 'rationality', 'in principle possible', 'justification', 'outward manifestation', 'truth', and so on. This interpretation cannot be detached from his answers to such queries as 'What is wrong with

201 See "What is Mathematics About?", SL, pp.442-4. Realism about vague predicates is ascribed by Dummett to Frege, in the article "Wang's Paradox", TOE, p.258 and p.262; and compare Dummett's own reservations concerning "phenomenal qualities, as these have been traditionally understood" (ibid, p.268). It is clear that what is criticized in both cases is not bivalence, but rather the idea of representation.

200

Epilogue

"modesty"?', 'Is there a complete description of reality?', 'What are the consequences of the immanent distinction between actual and potential?' and 'Is there a constitutive core for morality?'. All these form a unity which is founded on nothing but its own coherence and the basic motivations leading to it. *

*

*

Before concluding, I wish to devote a few words to a philosopher who is nowhere mentioned by Dummett, and who did not inspire Dummett in any way. Despite this, R.G. Collingwood appears before my eyes whenever I reflect on D u m m e t t ' s thought, since there is a striking similarity between his "key traits" and Dummett's. Indeed, Collingwood's "historic Kantianism" has m a n y affinities with D u m m e t t ' s linguistic Kantianism. Instead of specifying them here, I shall only mention briefly my conclusion from comparing the two philosophies, leaving a detailed examination of the connections between them to another occasion. Collingwood's philosophy undoubtedly springs from the same motivation as Dummett's. Like Dummett, he cherishes the optimistic threads of Enlightenment thought, while criticizing its negligence of the historical component. Although it may come as a surprise, Collingwood can readily be described as adopting Frege's three dicta: he is a great proponent of the autonomy of philosophy, and hence of the distinction between a conceptual and an empirical investigation; his emphasis on the relevance

and

he

frequently adheres to what he takes to be the constitutive features

of context to understanding

is common

knowledge;

of

rationality. However, Collingwood completely ignores the impact of Frege's linguistic turn. The result of this disregard is that his philosophy is doomed to stay on the most general level possible: although most of his ideas are in accord with what has been called here 'linguistic Kantianism', they do not give us a clue about the manner in which we should develop and anchor them. Moreover, as I noted, Frege's achievement was not only methodological, and hence the lack of a linguistic treatment points to a genuine deficiency on the part of Collingwood's philosophy. On the other hand, what 1 take to be a major clue to the understanding of D u m m e t t ' s philosophy is merely implicit in most of his writings. The faith in rationality and in its capacity to influence and to overcome irrational trends like mysticism and conservativism

Epilogue

201

appears mainly in his ethical writings, and even there it is very concisely stated. Likewise, his respect for the role of history in moulding rationality is very seldom expressed, and remains at the background most of the time. It is hence here, on the level of philosophical pictures, where we can gain by reading Dummett with Collingwood in mind. For I believe that linguistic Kantianism is better understood when it is conceived as an expression of faith, in the sense expressed by the following statements: Faith is a habit of mind which accepts without criticizing, pronounces without proving, and acts without arguing" (1928, p.3); "it is the attitude which we take up towards things as a whole" (p.24); "If you believe in the rationality of the world and the trustworthiness of human thinking (these two beliefs are the same belief stated in different terms) you will embody your belief in detailed scientific inquiries... Laws of thought... are at the same time laws of the real world, not scientifically discovered but embraced by an act of faith, of necessary and rational faith" (p.28f); "Faith they are, but not mere faith, because the faith which they express is a rational faith in the sense that it is universal in everyone... and necessary to all thought, even the thought by which you pretend to criticize it (p.23). Although Dummett has expressed his hostility to "the sceptic" several times, his adherence to the above maxims is mainly implicit. He certainly accepts certain general guidelines without criticizing, and acts upon them; 202 these guidelines form, eventually, a perspective from which everything is surveyed; they are anchored in interconnected beliefs in the rationality of man and world, and in the autonomy and significance of philosophy. It is this faith which is the crux of Dummett's linguistic Kantianism. 203

202 An example is his conception of systematization as obligatory to any rational account. 203 My claim that linguistic Kantianism is Dummett's general worldview can be supported by noting the similarities between its central threads, as delineated throughout this book, and the following remarks, concerning the moral and political role of the Church. The Catholic Church strives to keep a sharp separation between the essential core of Christianity and conclusions drawn from it. The merits of such "binding dogmatic pronouncements" (CWO, p. 18) are that they avoid the fear that leaders of the Church be "misconstrued as claiming for their judgements... the authority of divine revelation". Now why is such a dogmatic adherence to a stable core a merit? Isn't it just a manifestation of a rigid conservativism?

202

Epilogue I mentioned earlier that the most significant difference between Dum-

mett's and Wittgenstein's perspectives is the latter's pessimism, yielding a conception of philosophy as eventually sterile. A post-Marxian philosophy cannot afford to conceive itself as so remote and indifferent. "If the philosopher is no pilot, neither is he a mere spectator, watching the ship from his study window. He is one of the crew", wrote Collingwood (1934). I have tried to point at the way Dummett's optimist and adventurous assumptions yield some of his particular choices, but nothing can be more convincing than his own avowal, in his Valedictory Lecture (SL, p.477), that he simply cannot adopt a sceptical, or "pessimist" attitude, which acknowledges "a complex web of theory and practice, within which neither can be distinguished from the other", thus rejecting all need of justification or criticism of our practice. Such explicit pronouncements are rather rare in Dummett's "academic" books and articles; they are expressed much more explicitly and directly in his "secondary" writings, and no attempt is made there to link them with the main core of his philosophy. Whose motto have I followed, then? Have I "summed up" Dummett's perspective or have I portrayed only my own vision, tailoring it to suit Dummett's particular positions? I hope to have shown that Dummett's contribution to philosophy cannot be regarded as merely methodological, and that it makes a coherent and interesting whole, comprising various interconnected positions. Perhaps I feel more assured of its validity than Dummett himself. 204 But if it is really a wild interpretation, and if it turns out that I have created a perspective of my own, quite different from that of Dummett, then I can at least find comfort in knowing that I obeyed one of Dummett's

We understand the advantages of this recognized mandatory layer, when we examine the alternative, according to which "all is interpretation". In this latter attitude, "there is no significant distinction between a central core and the conclusions drawn from it. In such a context, there is some reason to be chary of venturing too deeply into applications" (ibid), for these are regarded as having no authority, being private in nature. (This is one of Dr. Edward Norman's arguments against the political involvement of the Church. See CWO, passim.) There are, of course, immense differences between the religious context and the philosophical one. Still, one cannot ignore the similarities. In order to avoid, conservativism and aloofness, Dummett dogmatically adopts a cenjral core, without criticizing, proving or arguing. If "all is interpretation", if no distinction is made between what is criteria! and what is accidental, everything reduces to being merely arbitrary, and we may indeed be reasonable in hesitating to apply our beliefs in order to change our practices. 204 See, e.g, the preface to TOE, p. xxxi, but especially p. xxxix, where he tells us of a halfbaked idea, that anti-realism's incoherence may help proving the existence of God.

Epilogue

203

principles nonetheless. For in philosophy, he says, there should be no disciples.

10 Bibliography Works by Dummett:

Books FPL = Frege: Philosophy of Language, 1973, second edition 1981, London: Duckworth. EI = Elements of Intuitionism, Oxford Logic Guides, 1977, Oxford: Oxford University Press. TOE = Truth and Other Enigmas, 1978, London: Duckworth. Im = Immigration:

Where the Debate Goes Wrong, 1978, London: Action

Group on Immigration and Nationality. CWO = Catholicism and the World Order, 1979, London: Catholic Institute for International Relations. GT = The Game ofTarot: From Ferrara to Salt lake City (with the assistance of Sylvia Mann), 1980, London: Duckworth. IFP = The Interpretation of Frege's philosophy, 1981, London: Duckworth. VP = Voting Procedures, 1984, Oxford: Oxford University Press. LBM = The Logical Basis of Metaphysics, 1991, London: Duckworth. FOP = Frege and Other Philosophers,

1991, Oxford: Oxford University

Press. FPM = Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics, 1991, London: Duckworth.

206

Bibliography

O AP = Origins of Analytical Philosophy, 1993, London: Duckworth. SL = The Seas of Language, 1993, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Articles CN = "Critical Notice", A Review of Brouwer 1975, 1980, Mind 89, pp.605616. CP = "Comments" (on Putnam's paper), 1979, in Margalit (ed.), pp.218-228. OCh = "Objections to Chomsky", London Review of Books, 1981. ORU = "Ought Research to be Unrestricted?", 1981, Grazer

Philosophical

Studies 12/13, pp.281-298. Re = "Realism", Synthese 52, 1982, pp.55-112. NW = "Nuclear Warfare", 1984, in Blake & Pole, pp.28-40. CDH = "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs, Some Comments on Davidson and Hacking", 1986, in LePore, pp.459-476. ECP = "The Ethics of Cultural Property", 7X5, 1986, p.809f. RE = "Replies to Essays", in Taylor, 1987, pp.219-330. MD = "The Morality of Deterrence", 1988, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary volume 12, pp.111-127. Co = An interview in Cogito 1, 1987, pp. 1-3.

Bibliography Wittgenstein's Τ = Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,

207

works

1922, Trans. C.K. Ogden, London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul. PI = Philosophical Investigations,

1953, Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford:

Blackwell. BB = The Blue and Brown Books, 1958, second edition 1969, Oxford: Blackwell. LE = "Lecture on Ethics", Philosophical Review 74, 1965, pp.3-12. Ζ = Zettel, 1967, Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell. OC = On Certainty, 1969, Trans. D. Paul & G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell. PG = Philosophical Grammar, 1974, Trans. A. Kenny, Oxford: Blackwell. RFM = Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics,

1978, revised third

edition, Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell.

Works by Other Authors Apel, K-O., 1991, "Is intentionality more Basic than Linguistic Meaning?", in LePore & van Gulick, pp.31-55. Appiah, Α., 1986, For Truth in Semantics, Oxford: Blackwell. Aristotle, 1941, Physics·, from McKeon, R. (ed.), The Basic Works of Aristotle, New York: Random House. Austin, J.L., 1962, How To Do Things With Words, second edition 1975, Oxford: Blackwell.

208

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1971,

Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. (ed.) 1959, Logical Positivism, New York: Macmillan. 1982, Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, London: Unwin. Baker, G., 1988, Wittgenstein,

Frege and the Vienna Circle, Oxford:

Blackwell. Baker, G. & Hacker, P.M.S., 1984, Language, Sense and Nonsense, Oxford: Blackwell. 1985, Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity, Oxford: Blackwell. Beiser, F.C. (ed.), 1993, The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bernstein, R., 1983, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, Oxford: Blackwell. Blackburn, S., 1981, "Reply: Rule-Following and Moral Realism", in Holtzman and Leich, pp. 163-187. Blackmore, C. & Greenfield, S. (eds.), 1987, Mindwaves, Oxford: Blackwell. Blake, N. & Pole, K. (eds.), 1984, Objections to Nuclear Defense, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Boolos, G. (ed.), 1990, Meaning University Press.

and Method, Cambridge: Cambridge

Brouwer, L.E.J., 1975, Collected Works, Vol.1, ed. by A. Heyting, Amsterdam: North- Holland. Brown, S.C. (ed.), 1984, Objectivity and Cultural Divergence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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pp.307-319. 1986b, "A nice Derangement of Epitaphs", in LePore, pp.433-446. 1990, "The Structure and Content of Truth", Journal of Philosophy 87, pp. 279-328. Devitt, M., 1983, "Dummett's Anti-Realism", Journal of Philosophy 80, pp. 73-99. 1984, Realism and Truth, second edition 1991, Oxford: Blackwell. Diamond, C., 1992, The Realistic Spirit, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Dilman, I., 1988, Mind, Brain and Behaviour, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Dworkin, R., 1977, Taking Rights Seriously, London: Duckworth. 1986, Law's Empire, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Evans, G. & McDowell, J. (eds.), Truth and Meaning, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fine, Α., 1984, "And Not Anti-Realist Either", Nous 18, pp.51-65. Fodor, J., 1975, The Language of Thought, New York: Crowell. 1987, Psychosemantics,

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George, Α., 1988, "The Conveyability of Intuitionism, An Essay on Mathematical Cognition", Journal of Philosoophical Logic 17, pp. 133-156. (ed.), 1989, Reflections on Chomsky, Oxford: Blackwell. Gunderson, K. (ed.), 1975, Language, Mind and Knowledge, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Guttenplan, S. (ed.), 1974, Mind and Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hacker, P.M.S., 1987, "Languages, Minds and Brains", in Blackmore & Greenfield, pp.485-505. 1990, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind, Oxford: Blackwell. Hacking, I., 1982, "Language, Truth and Reason", in Hollis & Lukes, pp.4866.

1986, "The Parody of Conversation", in LePore, pp.447-458. Haller, R. & McGuinness, B. (eds.), 1989, Wittgenstein in Focus, Rodopi, Amsterdam. Hirst, R.J., 1967, "Realism", in P. Edwards (ed.) The Encyclopedia

of

Philosophy, New York: Macmillan. Hollis, M. & Lukes, S. (eds.), 1982, Rationality and Relativism, Cambridge, Massachussets: MIT Press. Holtzman, S. & Leich, C. (eds.), 1981, Wittgenstein: To Follow a Rule, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Horwich, P., 1982, "Three Forms of Anti-Realism", Synthese 51, pp. 181-201. Hylton, P., 1993, "Hegel and Analytic Philosophy", in Beiser, pp.445-485.

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Johnston, P., 1989, Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy, London: Routledge. Kant, I., 1929, Critique of Pure Reason, Trans, by N. Kemp Smith, London: MacMillan. Kasher, Α., 1981, "Minimal Speakers, Necessary Speech Acts" in Coulmas, pp.93-101. 1984, "Are Speech Acts Conventional?", Journal of Pragmatics 8, pp.6569. 1987, "Justification of Speech, Acts, and Speech Acts", in Lepore, pp.281-303. Katz, J.J., 1990, The Metaphysics of Meaning, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Kekes, J., 1980, The Nature of Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell. 1983, "Philosophy, Historicism and Foundationalism", Philosophia 13, pp.213-233. Keynes, M.K., 1926, The End of Laisser-Faire, I. Kripke, S., 1982, Wittgenstein: On Rules and Private Language, Cambridge, Massachussets: Harvard University Press. Lear, J., 1982, "Leaving the World Alone", Journal of Philosophy 79, pp. 382-403. 1983, "Ethics, Mathematics, and Relativism", Mind 92, pp.38-60. (reprinted in Sayre-McCord). Lepore, E. (ed.), 1986, Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Blackwell. (ed.), 1987, New Directions in Semantics, London: Academic Press.

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LePore, E. & van Gulick (eds.), 1991, John Searle and His Critics, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell. Lewis, D., 1975, "Languages and Language", in Gunderson, pp.3-35. MacDonald, G.F. (ed.), Perception and Identity, London: Macmillan. Maclntyre, Α., 1968, Marxism and Christianity, Harmonsworth: Penguin. Margalit, A. (ed.), 1979, Meaning and Use, Dordrecht: Reidel. Margolis, J., 1986, Pragmatism Without Foundations, Oxford: Blackwell. Marx, K. & Engels, F., 1976, Collected Works, vol. V, London: Lawrence & Wishart. McDowell, J., 1981, "Non-Cognitivism and Rule-Following", in Holtzman and Leich, pp. 141-162. 1987, "In Defence of Modesty", in Taylor, pp.59-80. Mitchell, S. & Rosen, B. (eds.), 1983, The Need for Interpretation, London: Athlone. Moore, G.E., 1903, Principia Ethica, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Munitz, M.K.,

1981, Contemporary

Analytic

Philosophy,

New York:

Macmillan. Murphy, J.P., 1990, Pragmatism:

From Peirce to Davidson,

Westview. Papineau, D., 1987, Reality and Representation, Oxford: Blackwell. Pears, D., 1971, Wittgenstein, London: Fontana Press.

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Pettit, P., 1981, "Reply: Evaluative 'Realism'and Interpretation", in Holtzman and Leich, pp.211-245. Platts, M., 1980, "Morality and the End of Desire", in Reference, Truth and Reality (ed. Platts). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Putnam, H., 1975, Mind, Language and Reality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1981, Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1987, The Many Faces of Realism, La Salle: Open Court. 1990, "Does the Disquotational Theory Really Solve All Philosophical Problems?", Metaphilosophy 22, pp.1-13. Quine, W.V.O., 1953, From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1970, "Philosophical Progress in Language Theory", Metaphilosophy

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Ramberg, B.T., 1989, Donald Davidson's Philosophy of Language, Oxford: Blackwell. Rorty, R, 1980, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Oxford: Blackwell. 1982, Consequences

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Taylor, C., 1981, "Understanding and Explanation in the Geisteswissenschaften", in Holtzman and Leich, pp. 191-210. Tennant, N., 1987, Anti-Realism and Logic, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wiggins, D., 1976, "Truth, Invention and the Meaning of Life", in Proceedings of the British Academy LXII (reprinted in Sayre-McCord). Williams, B., 1984, "The Scientific and the Ethical", in Brown, pp.209-228. 1985, Ethics

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11 Name Index

Ape!, K-0. 47, 88, 116-120, 134, 208 Appiah, A. 96,

105,

129,

135, 158-165, 208 Aristotle 13, 24, 112, 116, 161, 208

144,

176,

184,

194,

206,

210, 214-216 Derrida, J. 36 Devitt, M.

Ayer, A.J. 178, 208

41, 48-50, 57,

135, 210

Baker, G. 8, 86, 109-112, 130, 139, 208

Dewey, J. 37 Diamond, C.

Berkeley, G. 10

54, 57, 64,

195, 210

11,12,22,27,

118, 208 Brouwer, L.E.J.

12, 33, 182,

183, 185, 210

10, 35,

141, 143, 176, 196, 206, 209

Evans, G. 17,211 Fine, A. 31, 54, 55, 57, 60, 65, 67, 98, 211

Carnap, R. 10, 44, 161, 209 N.

Dilman, I. 123, 210 Dworkin, R.

Blackburn, S. 174, 208

Chomsky,

110,

122,

Descartes, R. 36, 40, 45

Augustine 29, 101

Bernstein, R.

105-107,

59,

Frege, G.

5, 1, 7-9, 16, 17,

83,

20-22, 30, 31, 34,

124-128, 130, 194,

36, 38, 39, 41, 42,

206, 209, 211

44-46, 48, 53, 71,

Collingwood, R.G.

3, 4, 27,

74, 78, 87, 89, 98,

31, 32, 35, 36, 125,

105, 108-114, 125,

132, 135, 154, 156,

127, 130, 132, 137,

164, 168, 170, 171,

143, 148-151, 180,

191, 200-202, 209 Davidson, D.

4, 13, 51-53,

186, 192-197, 199, 200, 205, 208, 211,

55-63, 67, 77, 79,

215

80, 82, 84, 85, 87,

Gentzen, E. 148, 149

88,

91,

97-100,

95, 102,

96, 103,

218

George, Α. 136-138, 141-144, 148, 149, 152, 211, 215, 217 Grice, P. 88 Habermas, J. 1 2 , 3 3 , 4 7 , 1 1 8 Hacker, P.M.S. 86, 109-112, 123, 130, 131, 133, 139, 208, 211 Hacking, I. 32, 84, 88, 206, 211

Hegel, G.W.F.

16, 22, 35,

36, 171, 208, 212 Heidegger, M. 36, 37 Horwitz, P. 60 Hylton, P. 47, 212 Johnston, P. 184, 185, 187, 212 Kant, I.

9, 10, 12, 22, 31, 35, 36, 39-42, 45-47, 50-54, 73, 100, 117, 122, 143, 149-151, 171, 187, 192, 197, 212

Katz, J.J. 127, 212 Kekes, J. 26, 27, 30-32, 36, 212 Kripke, S. 82-84, 86, 93, 213 Kuhn, T. 189 Lear, J. 54, 63, 64, 85, 104, 127, 131, 152, 155, 174, 175, 180-182, 213 Leibniz, G.W. 16 Lewis,, D. 85, 213

Lotze, H. 53 Mach, E. 44 Maclntyre, A. 3, 4, 213 Margolis, J. 54, 57, 66, 213 Marx, K. 3, 213 McDowell, J. 4, 83, 89-93, 102, 115, 116, 172-178, 190, 196, 211, 213 McTaggart, J. 198 Mitchell, S. 11-13, 32, 33, 118, 213 Moore, G.E. 44, 48, 176, 214 Munitz, M.K. 43, 44, 214 Murphy, J. 67, 81, 214 Norman, E. 202 Papineau, D. 2, 3, 214 Parsons, C. 143, 148 Pears, D. 42, 46, 214 Peirce, C.S. 30, 116, 117, 214 Plato, 6, 29 7, 36 Platts, M. 172, 175, 214 Popper, Κ 10 12 Putnam, Η. 11, 41, 51-56, 68, 96, 98, 99, 103, 118, 129, 163, 164, 169, 170, 206, 214 Quine, W.V.O. 10, 32, 58, 62, 71, 72, 74-76, 95, 96, 98, 127, 186, 214 Ramberg, Β. 59, 80-82, 85, 87, 95, 100, 120, 215

Name Index

219

Rorty, R. 4, 11, 13, 14, 32,

Wittgenstein, L. 6-9, 15, 17,

33, 36-38, 53, 54,

29, 30, 34, 42, 46,

57-62, 66-72, 81, 82,

48,

87, 91, 92, 101, 102,

63-67, 73, 74, 78,

104, 176, 189, 190,

79,

196, 215

91-93, 99, 100, 104,

Rosen, S.

11,13,118,213

54,

59,

81-83,

61,

85-89,

105, 108, 110, 111,

Rundle, B. 177, 215

112-114,

Ruskin, J. 191

119, 121,

Russell, B.

127, 130, 132, 137,

36, 44, 46, 48,

139,

165, 215 Sayre-McCord, G.

172, 213,

116, 118, 123-125,

141,

146-152,

143,

177-179,

184, 193, 194, 196,

215, 216 Schlick, M. 178

197, 199, 202, 207,

Searle, J.

208, 211-214, 216,

47, 88, 116-118,

217

213, 215 Sellars, W.

71, 91, 94, 209,

215 Sluga, H.

Woolf, V. 191 Wright, C. 8, 25, 40, 62, 68,

34, 35, 44, 47,

215

69, 79, 81-87, 96, 113, 117,

119-121,

Smart, J.J.C. 32, 216

123, 128, 130, 134,

Strawson, P. 46, 135, 216

136-141,

Tarski, Α. 59, 60, 118

151,

Taylor, C.

160-162, 216

175, 206, 213,

216 Tennant,

Ν.

76-78,

96,

128-130, 216 Wiggins, D.

33,

179-183,

216 Williams, Β. 177, 179, 216

145, 146, 153-156,

Dale Jacquette

Meinongian Logic The Semantics of Existence and Nonexistence 1996. 23 X 15,5 cm. XIII, 297 pages. Cloth ISBN 3-11-014865-X (Perspektiven der Analytischen Philosophie/Perspectives in Analytical Philosophy, Vol. 11) Study on Intensional Logic based on the theory of the Brentano scholar Meinong (1853-1920). From the contents: Meinong's Theory of Objects: Elements of Object Theory — Formal Semantic Paradox in Meinong's Object Theory — Meinong's Theory of Defective Objects — The Object Theory Intentionality of Ontological Commitment — Logic, Mind, and Meinong — Meinong's Doctrine of the Modal Moment. Object Theory O: Syntax, Formation and Inference Principles — Semantics — Developments of the Logic. Philosophical Problems and Applications: Twardowski on Content and Object — Private Language and Private Mental Objects — God an Impossible Meinongian Object — Meinongian Models of Scientific Law — Aesthetics and Meinongian Logic of Fiction — The Paradox of Analysis.

Walter de Gruyter

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Berlin · New York